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A TEFL Reader Games, Activities, General Resources

Nelson Beard

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Index

1. English Tense Chart & Timeline Pg.4-5

2. Phonemic Script Pg.6

3. Pronunciation Information and Tips Pg.7-8

4. Latin and Greek Word Elements in English Pg. 9-12

5. The Tongue Twister Database Pg.13-31

6. Classroom Information for Young Learners Pg.32-44

7. Tips and Routines for YL Activities Pg. 45-46

8. YL Games/Activities Pg.47-62

9. Adult Games and Activities Pg 63-72

10. YL Chants Pg. 73-99

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Tenses in English One of the most complex issues for your students will be to master the tenses or time in the English language. This will be even more critical with students whose native languages don't put so much emphasis on the concept of "time" in grammar as many European languages and Arabic, for example, do. A basic outline of the tenses of English is contained in the chart below.

Simple Tenses Simple Continuous Tenses Perfect Tenses Perfect Continuous Tenses Simple Present:

I go. Present Continuous

I am going. Present Perfect I have gone

Present Perfect Continuous: I have been going.

Simple Past: I went.

Past Continuous: I was going.

Past Perfect: I had gone

Past Perfect Continuous: I had been going.

Simple Future: I will go.

Future Continuous: I will be going.

Future Perfect: will have gone.

Future Perfect Continuous: I will have been going.

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English Tenses Timeline Chart Conjugated verbs are highlighted in bold. Tenses which are rarely used in everyday conversation are marked by an asterik (*).

TIMELINE

SIMPLE ACTIVE

SIMPLE PASSIVE

PROGRESSIVE / CONTINUOUS ACTIVE

PROGRESSIVE / CONTINUOUS PASSIVE

PAST TIME ^ | |

She had already eaten when I arrived.

The painting had been sold twice before it was destroyed.

^ PAST

PERFECT | |

I had been waiting for four hours when he finally arrived.

The house had been being painted for over a month before they began to decorate the interior. *

I bought a new car last week.

The book was written in 1876 by Frank Smith.

^ PAST

| |

I was watching TV when she arrived.

The problem was being solved when I arrived late for class.

She has lived in California for many years.

The company has been managed by Fred Jones for the last two years.

^ PRESENT PERFECT

| |

She has been working at Johnson's for six months.

The students have been being taught for the last four hours. *

He works five days a week.

Those shoes are made in Italy.

^ PRESENT

| |

I am working at the moment.

The work is being done by Jim.

FUTURE INTENTION

| | V

They are going to fly to New York tomorrow.

The reports are going to be completed by the marketing department.

The sun will shine tomorrow.

The food will be brought later.

FUTURE SIMPLE

| | V

She will be teaching tomorrow at six o'clock.

The rolls will be being baked at two. *

I will have completed the course by the end of next week.

The project will have been finished by tomorrow afternoon.

FUTURE PERFECT

| | V

She will have been working here for two years by the end of next month.

The house will have been being built for six months by the time they finish. *

FUTURE

TIME

Online version

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English Phonemic Script

Pronunciation Information and Tips 1. There are three pronunciations for the ending –ED:/t/, /d/, and /.d/.

Final –ED is pronounced /t/ after voiceless sounds. Examples of voiceless sounds are “k”, “p”, and “s”. Thus, examples of –ED with a /t/ pronunciation are looked, zipped, and kissed.

Final –ED is pronounced /d/ after voiced sounds. Examples of voiced sounds are “l”, “n”, and “v” and all vowel sounds. Thus, examples of –ED with a /d/ pronunciation are called, cleaned, and played.

Final –ED is pronounced /.d/ after “t” and “d”. In these cases, the ending adds a whole syllable to the word. Thus, examples of –ED with an /.d / pronunciation are wanted and needed. 2. There are three pronunciations for the ending –ES: /z/, /iz/, /s/

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3. When teaching the alphabet it is helpful to chunk similar sounding letters together: /eI/ AJK /I:/ BCDEGPTV /aI/ IY /e/ FSXLMN /ju:/ QUW Misc: HROZ Use this similarity to open activities, games, class routines: example: I like to use them in lower classes as my team names: Team A, Team J.

Latin and Greek Word Elements

English is a living language, and it is growing all the time. One way that new words come into the language is when words are borrowed from other languages. New words are also created when words or word elements, such as roots, prefixes, and suffixes, are combined in new ways.

Many English words and word elements can be traced back to Latin and Greek. Often you can guess the meaning of an unfamiliar word if you know the meaning.

A word root is a part of a word. It contains the core meaning of the word, but it cannot stand alone. A prefix is also a word part that cannot stand alone. It is placed at the beginning of a word to change its meaning. A suffix is a word part that is placed at the end of a word to change its meaning. Often you can guess the meaning of an unfamiliar word if you know the meaning of its parts; that is, the root and any prefixes or suffixes that are attached to it.

Latin Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes

Latin was the language spoken by the ancient Romans. As the Romans conquered most of Europe, the Latin language spread throughout the region. Over time, the Latin spoken in different areas developed into separate languages, including Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. These languages are considered “sisters,” as they all descended from Latin, their “mother” language.

In 1066 England was conquered by William, duke of Normandy, which is in northern France. For several hundred years after the Norman invasion, French was the language of court and polite society in England. It was during this period that many French words were borrowed into English. Linguists estimate that some 60% of our common everyday vocabulary today comes from French. Thus many Latin words came into English indirectly through French.

Many Latin words came into English directly, though, too. Monks from Rome brought religious vocabulary as well as Christianity to England beginning in the 6th century. From the Middle Ages onward many scientific, scholarly, and legal terms were borrowed from Latin.

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During the 17th and 18th centuries, dictionary writers and grammarians generally felt that English was an imperfect language whereas Latin was perfect. In order to improve the language, they deliberately made up a lot of English words from Latin words. For example, fraternity, from Latin fraternitas, was thought to be better than the native English word brotherhood.

Many English words and word parts can be traced back to Latin and Greek.

The following table lists some common Latin roots.

Latin root Basic meaning Example words

-dict- to say contradict, dictate, diction, edict, predict

-duc- to lead, bring, take

deduce, produce, reduce

-gress- to walk digress, progress, transgress

-ject- to throw eject, inject, interject, project, reject, subject

-pel- to drive compel, dispel, impel, repel

-pend- to hang append, depend, impend, pendant, pendulum

-port- to carry comport, deport, export, import, report, support

-scrib-, -script-

to write describe, description, prescribe, prescription, subscribe, subscription, transcribe, transcription

-tract- to pull, drag, draw

attract, contract, detract, extract, protract, retract, traction

-vert- to turn convert, divert, invert, revert

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From the example words in the above table, it is easy to see how roots combine with prefixes to form new words. For example, the root -tract-, meaning “to pull,” can combine with a number of prefixes, including de- and re-. Detract means literally “to pull away” (de-, “away, off”) and retract means literally “to pull back” (re-, “again, back”). The following table gives a list of Latin prefixes and their basic meanings.

Latin prefix Basic meaning Example words

co- Together coauthor, coedit, coheir

de- away, off; generally indicates reversal or removal in English

deactivate, debone, defrost, decompress, deplane

dis- not, not any disbelief, discomfort, discredit, disrepair, disrespect

inter- between, among international, interfaith, intertwine, intercellular, interject

non- Not nonessential, nonmetallic, nonresident, nonviolence, nonskid, nonstop

post- After postdate, postwar, postnasal, postnatal

pre- Before preconceive, preexist, premeditate, predispose, prepossess, prepay

re- again; back, backward rearrange, rebuild, recall, remake, rerun, rewrite

sub- Under submarine, subsoil, subway, subhuman, substandard

trans- across, beyond, through transatlantic, transpolar

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Words and word roots may also combine with suffixes. Here are examples of some important English suffixes that come from Latin:

Latin suffix Basic meaning Example words

-able, -ible

forms adjectives and means “capable or worthy of”

likable, flexible

-ation forms nouns from verbs create, creation; civilize, civilization

-fy, -ify forms verbs and means “to make or cause to become”

purify, acidify, humidify

-ment forms nouns from verbs entertain, entertainment; amaze, amazement

-ty, -ity forms nouns from adjectives

subtlety, certainty, cruelty, frailty, loyalty, royalty; eccentricity, electricity, peculiarity, similarity, technicality

Greek Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes

The following table lists some common Greek roots.

Greek root Basic meaning Example words

-anthrop- Human misanthrope, philanthropy, anthropomorphic

-chron- Time anachronism, chronic, chronicle, synchronize, chronometer

-dem- People democracy, demography, demagogue, endemic, pandemic

-morph- Form amorphous, metamorphic, morphology

-path- feeling, suffering empathy, sympathy, apathy, apathetic, psychopathic

-pedo-, -ped-

child, children pediatrician, pedagogue

-philo-, -phil-

having a strong affinity or love for

philanthropy, philharmonic, philosophy

-phon- Sound polyphonic, cacophony, phonetics

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The following table gives a list of Greek prefixes and their basic meanings.

Greek prefix

Basic meaning Example words

a-, an- Without achromatic, amoral, atypical, anaerobic

anti-, ant- Opposite; opposing anticrime, antipollution, antacid

auto- self, same autobiography, automatic, autopilot

bio-, bi- life, living organism; biology, biological

biology, biophysics, biotechnology, biopsy

geo- Earth; geography geography, geomagnetism, geophysics, geopolitics

hyper- excessive, excessively hyperactive, hypercritical, hypersensitive

micro- Small microcosm, micronucleus, microscope

mono- one, single, alone monochrome, monosyllable, monoxide

neo- new, recent neonatal, neophyte, neoconservatism, neofascism, neodymium

pan- All panorama, panchromatic, pandemic, pantheism

thermo-, therm-

Heat thermal, thermometer, thermostat

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Words and word roots may also combine with suffixes. Here are examples of some important English suffixes that come from Greek:

Greek suffix

Basic meaning Example words

-ism forms nouns and means “the act, state, or theory of”

criticism, optimism, capitalism

-ist forms agent nouns from verbs ending in -ize or nouns ending in -ism and is used like –er

conformist, copyist, cyclist

-ize forms verbs from nouns and adjectives

formalize, jeopardize, legalize, modernize, emphasize, hospitalize, industrialize, computerize

-gram something written or drawn, a record cardiogram, telegram

-graph something written or drawn; an instrument for writing, drawing, or recording

monograph; phonograph, seismograph

-logue, -log

speech, discourse; to speak monologue, dialogue, travelogue

-logy discourse, expression; science, theory, study

phraseology, biology, dermatology

-meter, -metry

measuring device; measure geometry, kilometer, parameter, perimeter

-oid forms adjectives and nouns and means “like, resembling” or “shape, form”

humanoid, spheroid, trapezoid

-phile one that loves or has a strong affinity for; loving

audiophile, Francophile

-phobe, -phobia

one that fears a specified thing; an intense fear of a specified thing

agoraphobe, agoraphobia, xenophobe, xenophobia

-phone sound; device that receives or emits sound; speaker of a language

homophone, geophone, telephone, Francophone

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The Tongue Twister Database

Developed by: craigstaley@yahoo.com

Six sick slick slim sycamore saplings.

A box of biscuits, a batch of mixed biscuits

A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk, but the stump thunk the skunk stunk.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers? If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry.

Unique New York.

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Betty Botter had some butter, "But," she said, "this butter's bitter. If I bake this bitter butter, it would make my batter bitter. But a bit of better butter-- that would make my batter better." So she bought a bit of butter, better than her bitter butter, and she baked it in her batter, and the batter was not bitter. So 'twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter.

Six thick thistle sticks. Six thick thistles stick.

Is this your sister's sixth zither, sir?

A big black bug bit a big black bear, made the big black bear bleed blood.

The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick.

Toy boat. Toy boat. Toy boat.

One smart fellow, he felt smart. Two smart fellows, they felt smart. Three smart fellows, they all felt smart.

Pope Sixtus VI's six texts.

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I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit.

She sells sea shells by the sea shore. The shells she sells are surely seashells. So if she sells shells on the seashore, I'm sure she sells seashore shells.

Mrs. Smith's Fish Sauce Shop.

"Surely Sylvia swims!" shrieked Sammy, surprised. "Someone should show Sylvia some strokes so she shall not sink."

A Tudor who tooted a flute tried to tutor two tooters to toot. Said the two to their tutor, "Is it harder to toot or to tutor two tooters to toot?"

Shy Shelly says she shall sew sheets.

Three free throws.

I am not the pheasant plucker, I'm the pheasant plucker's mate. I am only plucking pheasants 'cause the pheasant plucker's running late.

Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.

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A flea and a fly flew up in a flue. Said the flea, "Let us fly!" Said the fly, "Let us flee!" So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

Knapsack straps.

Which wristwatches are Swiss wristwatches?

Lesser leather never weathered wetter weather better.

A bitter biting bittern Bit a better brother bittern, And the bitter better bittern Bit the bitter biter back. And the bitter bittern, bitten, By the better bitten bittern, Said: "I'm a bitter biter bit, alack!"

Inchworms itching.

A noisy noise annoys an oyster.

The myth of Miss Muffet.

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Mr. See owned a saw. And Mr. Soar owned a seesaw. Now See's saw sawed Soar's seesaw Before Soar saw See, Which made Soar sore. Had Soar seen See's saw Before See sawed Soar's seesaw, See's saw would not have sawed Soar's seesaw. So See's saw sawed Soar's seesaw. But it was sad to see Soar so sore Just because See's saw sawed Soar's seesaw!

Friendly Frank flips fine flapjacks.

Vincent vowed vengeance very vehemently.

Cheap ship trip.

I cannot bear to see a bear Bear down upon a hare. When bare of hair he strips the hare, Right there I cry, "Forbear!"

Lovely lemon liniment.

Gertie's great-grandma grew aghast at Gertie's grammar.

Tim, the thin twin tinsmith

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Fat frogs flying past fast.

I need not your needles, they're needless to me; For kneading of noodles, 'twere needless, you see; But did my neat knickers but need to be kneed, I then should have need of your needles indeed.

Flee from fog to fight flu fast!

Greek grapes.

The boot black bought the black boot back.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? He would chuck, he would, as much as he could, and chuck as much wood as a woodchuck would if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

We surely shall see the sun shine soon.

Moose noshing much mush.

Ruby Rugby's brother bought and brought her back some rubber baby-buggy bumpers.

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Sly Sam slurps Sally's soup.

My dame hath a lame tame crane, My dame hath a crane that is lame.

Six short slow shepherds.

A tree toad loved a she-toad Who lived up in a tree. He was a two-toed tree toad But a three-toed toad was she. The two-toed tree toad tried to win The three-toed she-toad's heart, For the two-toed tree toad loved the ground That the three-toed tree toad trod. But the two-toed tree toad tried in vain. He couldn't please her whim. From her tree toad bower With her three-toed power The she-toad vetoed him.

Which witch wished which wicked wish?

Old oily Ollie oils old oily autos.

The two-twenty-two train tore through the tunnel.

Silly Sally swiftly shooed seven silly sheep. The seven silly sheep Silly Sally shooed shilly-shallied south. These sheep shouldn't sleep in a shack; sheep should sleep in a shed.

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Twelve twins twirled twelve twigs.

Three gray geese in the green grass grazing. Gray were the geese and green was the grass.

Many an anemone sees an enemy anemone.

Nine nice night nurses nursing nicely.

Peggy Babcock.

You've no need to light a night-light On a light night like tonight, For a night-light's light's a slight light, And tonight's a night that's light. When a night's light, like tonight's light, It is really not quite right To light night-lights with their slight lights On a light night like tonight.

Black bug's blood.

Flash message!

Say this sharply, say this sweetly, Say this shortly, say this softly. Say this sixteen times in succession.

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Six sticky sucker sticks.

If Stu chews shoes, should Stu choose the shoes he chews?

Crisp crusts crackle crunchily.

Give papa a cup of proper coffee in a copper coffee cup.

Six sharp smart sharks.

What a shame such a shapely sash should such shabby stitches show.

Sure the ship's shipshape, sir.

Betty better butter Brad's bread.

Of all the felt I ever felt, I never felt a piece of felt which felt as fine as that felt felt, when first I felt that felt hat's felt.

Sixish.

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Don't pamper damp scamp tramps that camp under ramp lamps.

Swan swam over the sea, Swim, swan, swim! Swan swam back again Well swum, swan!

Six shimmering sharks sharply striking shins.

I thought a thought. But the thought I thought wasn't the thought I thought I thought.

Brad's big black bath brush broke.

Thieves seize skis.

Chop shops stock chops.

Sarah saw a shot-silk sash shop full of shot-silk sashes as the sunshine shone on the side of the shot-silk sash shop.

Strict strong stringy Stephen Stretch slickly snared six sickly silky snakes.

Susan shineth shoes and socks; socks and shoes shines Susan.

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She ceased shining shoes and socks, for shoes and socks shock Susan.

Truly rural.

The blue bluebird blinks.

Betty and Bob brought back blue balloons from the big bazaar.

When a twister a-twisting will twist him a twist, For the twisting of his twist, he three twines doth intwist; But if one of the twines of the twist do untwist, The twine that untwisteth untwisteth the twist.

Untwirling the twine that untwisteth between, He twirls, with his twister, the two in a twine; Then twice having twisted the twines of the twine, He twitcheth the twice he had twined in twain.

The twain that in twining before in the twine, As twines were intwisted he now doth untwine; Twist the twain inter-twisting a twine more between, He, twirling his twister, makes a twist of the twine.

The Leith police dismisseth us.

The seething seas ceaseth and twiceth the seething seas sufficeth us.

If one doctor doctors another doctor, does the doctor who doctors the doctor doctor the doctor the way the

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doctor he is doctoring doctors? Or does he doctor the doctor the way the doctor who doctors doctors?

Two Truckee truckers truculently truckling to have truck to truck two trucks of truck.

Plague-bearing prairie dogs.

Ed had edited it.

She sifted thistles through her thistle-sifter.

Give me the gift of a grip top sock: a drip-drape, ship-shape, tip-top sock.

While we were walking, we were watching window washers wash Washington's windows with warm washing water.

Freshly fried fresh flesh.

Pacific Lithograph.

Six twin screwed steel steam cruisers.

The crow flew over the river with a lump of raw liver.

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Preshrunk silk shirts

A bloke's back bike brake block broke.

A pleasant place to place a plaice is a place where a plaice is pleased to be placed.

I correctly recollect Rebecca MacGregor's reckoning.

Good blood, bad blood.

Quick kiss. Quicker kiss.

I saw Esau kissing Kate. I saw Esau, he saw me, and she saw I saw Esau.

Cedar shingles should be shaved and saved.

Lily ladles little Letty's lentil soup.

Amidst the mists and coldest frosts, with stoutest wrists and loudest boasts, he thrusts his fist against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.

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Shelter for six sick scenic sightseers.

Listen to the local yokel yodel.

Give Mr. Snipa's wife's knife a swipe.

Whereat with blade, with bloody, blameful blade, he bravely broached his boiling bloody breast.

Are our oars oak?

Can you imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie?

A lusty lady loved a lawyer and longed to lure him from his laboratory.

The epitome of femininity.

She stood on the balcony inexplicably mimicing him hiccupping, and amicably welcoming him home.

Kris Kringle carefully crunched on candy canes.

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Please pay promptly.

On mules we find two legs behind and two we find before. We stand behind before we find what those behind be for.

What time does the wristwatch strap shop shut?

One-One was a racehorse. Two-Two was one, too. When One-One won one race, Two-Two won one, too.

Girl gargoyle, guy gargoyle.

Pick a partner and practice passing, for if you pass proficiently, perhaps you'll play professionally.

Once upon a barren moor There dwelt a bear, also a boar. The bear could not bear the boar. The boar thought the bear a bore. At last the bear could bear no more Of that boar that bored him on the moor, And so one morn he bored the boar-- That boar will bore the bear no more.

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If a Hottentot taught a Hottentot tot To talk ere the tot could totter, Ought the Hottenton tot Be taught to say aught, or naught, Or what ought to be taught her? If to hoot and to toot a Hottentot tot Be taught by her Hottentot tutor, Ought the tutor get hot If the Hottentot tot Hoot and toot at her Hottentot tutor?

Will you, William?

Mix, Miss Mix!

Who washed Washington's white woolen underwear when Washington's washer woman went west?

Two toads, totally tired.

Freshly-fried flying fish.

The sawingest saw I ever saw saw was the saw I saw saw in Arkansas.

Just think, that sphinx has a sphincter that stinks!

Strange strategic statistics.

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Sarah sitting in her Chevrolet, All she does is sits and shifts, All she does is sits and shifts.

Hi-Tech Traveling Tractor Trailor Truck Tracker

Ned Nott was shot

and Sam Shott was not. So it is better to be Shott

than Nott. Some say Nott

was not shot. But Shott says

he shot Nott. Either the shot Shott shot at Nott

was not shot, or Nott was shot.

If the shot Shott shot shot Nott, Nott was shot.

But if the shot Shott shot shot Shott, then Shott was shot, not Nott.

However, the shot Shott shot shot not Shott -- but Nott.

Six slippery snails, slid slowly seaward.

Three twigs twined tightly.

There was a young fisher named Fischer Who fished for a fish in a fissure. The fish with a grin, Pulled the fisherman in; Now they're fishing the fissure for Fischer.

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Pretty Kitty Creighton had a cotton batten cat. The cotton batten cat was bitten by a rat. The kitten that was bitten had a button for an eye, And biting off the button made the cotton batten fly.

Suddenly swerving, seven small swans Swam silently southward, Seeing six swift sailboats Sailing sedately seaward.

The ochre ogre ogled the poker.

If you stick a stock of liquor in your locker, It's slick to stick a lock upon your stock, Or some stickler who is slicker Will stick you of your liquor If you fail to lock your liquor With a lock!

Shredded Swiss chesse.

The soldiers shouldered shooters on their shoulders.

Theophiles Thistle, the successful thistle-sifter, in sifting a sieve full of un-sifted thistles, thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb.

Now.....if Theophiles Thistle, the successful thistle-sifter, in sifting a sieve full of un-sifted thistles, thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb, see that thou, in sifting a sieve full of un-sifted thistles, thrust not three thousand thistles through the thick of thy thumb.

Success to the successful thistle-sifter!

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Thank the other three brothers of their father's mother's brother's side.

They both, though, have thirty-three thick thimbles to thaw.

Irish wristwatch.

Fred fed Ted bread, and Ted fed Fred bread.

Cows graze in groves on grass which grows in grooves in groves.

Brisk brave brigadiers brandished broad bright blades, blunderbusses, and bludgeons -- balancing them badly.

Tragedy strategy.

Selfish shellfish.

They have left the thriftshop, and lost both their theatre tickets and the volume of valuable licenses and coupons for free theatrical frills and thrills

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Classroom Information for Young Learners

Teaching Phonics Phonics is one method of teaching children how to read. Children are taught how to "sound out" new words by learning the following items:

• Consonant letters sounds: b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z • Blend sounds: br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, tr, wr, bl, cl, fl, gl, pl, sl, scr, str, sm, sn, sp, sc,

sk, • Short vowel sounds: a, e, i, o, u

Always teach short vowel sounds first: a - apple, e - elephant, i- igloo, o - octopus, u - umbrella)

• Digraph sounds: sh, ch, th, wh Two letters combine to make a totally different sound.

• Double vowel sounds: ai, ea, ee, oa These pairs say the name of the first vowel.

• Other double vowel sounds: oi, oo, ou, ow • Silent e: Silent e is bossy, it doesn't say anything but makes the vowel before it

say its own name. • R controlled vowel sounds: ar, er, ir, or, ur

Notice that er,ir and ur make the same sound.

Phonics is a series of rules that children have to memorize and apply when they are sounding out new words. Children are taught a rule, i.e. Silent e, and then they practice reading words with Silent e. Then children do skill sheets at their desk highlighting the Silent e rule. Children must learn letter sounds to an automatic level - they must be able to see the letter(s) and say the sound immediately.

Critics point out that the reading/practice materials aren't very interesting, "See Spot run. Run Spot run. Spot runs fast." It is a contrived atmosphere of reading practice using the phonic rules.

Here's the bigger problem: children who struggle in reading memorize phonic rules, and then are unable to apply phonic rules to connected print. To remedy this problem, two things must happen:

1. Only the most important phonic rules should be taught in the least complicated manner possible. For example, in teaching vowel sounds, it is distracting to talk about "short versus long" vowels. Instead, a child should be taught the short vowel sounds first. Then when a child encounters a long vowel as in the word find, tell him, "That vowel says its own name."

2. Phonics must be taught in a way that allows these children to immediately practice phonic information in real stories. Every time a child is taught new phonic information, he should be given a short reading selection that highlights

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the phonic rule. Completing a skill sheet is good, but even better is to help the child practice applying the phonic skill to connected print.

A child cannot learn to read without proper knowledge in phonics. It is the foundation for success in reading. She will succeed to read if she knows phonics.

Whole Language Whole language is a "whole - part" method of teaching children to read. (Phonics is a "part - whole" reading method.) Teachers use connected print to introduce reading to children. Children are encouraged to memorize words as whole units. They do hands-on activities such as writing in journals, and analyzing words in context, by using pictures, for meaning.

Whole language has strengths in that children begin to write early. They are involved in connected print, and they are using personal language skills making the process of reading more interesting. The weakness of whole language methods is that some children never get a full phonic foundation. They are unable to decode unfamiliar words. Research has shown that good readers always use phonics to decipher new words.

Reading is best taught using a combination of three methodologies:

• Auditory training - training for the ears to prepare the child's brain for phonics. • Phonics - knowledge of letter(s) sounds. • Whole Language - immediate application of phonics into connected stories.

Reading begins in a child's ears. When you talk to your child, you are putting the sounds of the English language into his brain. His brain is properly wired to learn to talk back to you. Over time his speaking vocabulary grows to thousands of words. The more you talk, sing, and read to your child, the bigger his speaking vocabulary will become. Here is the surprise: children's brains are not automatically wired for reading. Your child needs your help to become a successful reader. Learning how to read begins when your child's ears are ready. There are several things you can do to get your child's ears ready. Teach him how to rhyme by playing rhyming games, or reading rhyming poems to him. Play some of the other games presented in this website. His ears are ready when he can rhyme and play the games successfully.

Teach your child alphabet letter names and sounds. This is the beginning of phonics. Phonics is learning what letters and letter combinations "say." It is an essential part of learning how to read. Don't assume that your child learned all the letter sounds in school. It is likely that she does not know the vowel sounds because they sound so similar. Other important phonic combinations are listed in the sidebar. When your child learns letter sounds, teach her to "blend" them together to "sound out" new words. Knowledge of phonics will help her to read many words that follow phonic rules. The best way to incorporate phonics is to find a short reading selection that has a lot of "sh" words, for example, and read those words to him. Ask your child to say some words beginning with

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the "sh" sound. Then teach him to read the short selection. Continue teaching phonics by finding other short reading selections, each highlighting one of the letter combinations from the phonic list. Please notice that letters and letter combinations appear in different places in words. Vowels often occur in the middle of words. "Wh" occurs at the beginning of words and "Ch" appears at the beginning or end of words.

Phonic skills must be put into connected print in order to become useful. Connected print is short selections in magazines or books. Two books, both by Dr. Seuss, have wonderful selections to help a child apply a phonic skill by reading connected print.

1. Hop on Pop, an easier selection by Dr. Seuss (1963), has the following selections: o pages 3-5 short u "Up pup pup is up." o pages 22-24 short e "Red Red They call me Red." o pages 26-33 short a "Pat cat Pat sat on a cat." "Dad is sad. Very, very sad." o pages 40-41 short o "We like to hop on top of Pop." o pages 56-57 short i "Will is up hill still."

2. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, by Dr. Seuss (1960), has these selections:

o pages 10-11, 18-19 short u "They run for fun in the hot, hot sun." o pages 26-27 ea words "Oh dear! I cannot hear." o pages 30-31 oo words "He took a look at the book on the hook." o pages 40-43 short i "It is fun to sing if you sing with a Ying."

o pages 48-49 short e "You never met� pet as wet as they let this wet pet get."

You should help your child read a new reading selection every other day. This is incorporating whole language methods of learning how to read. Using "To, With, and By" teach your child how to read a couple of sentences or one paragraph until it sounds great. The whole language method helps your child learn to read "sight words." Sight words must be memorized because they don't follow phonic rules. (Half of all words in the English language are sight words.)

Best of all, using To, With, and By will improve your child's fluency and comprehension. The goal of reading is comprehension. When your child is able to sound out new words, has memorized a bunch of sight words, reads fluently and understands what he read, he has learned how to read!

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More Phonics

did some phonics today with elementary stu's in a hagwon. Loads of stuff: keep it easy - we did -ap and -op words today (tap and top, for example). Indeed, when they struggled to get the differences it made me realise how much one just relies on context. I haven't done much with phonics, but I am quite surprised how difficult they find it. A hint here is to make it absurd the differences by using sentences e.g. you want to wear my cat? My hat?? 1. use picture cues for many games. MANY games! fly swat games (hit the right card), running games (run to the right cards), guess the number games (stick the pics on the board, number them, then write a number under your hand and get them to guess - by saying the word - the right card), write the number games (a good one to start with); actions, action games, etc. 2. we had writing races today - give 'em a run up and a pen and they have to write the word or the sentence on the board first..) Often these are more sorta listening based, but that last one is cool becuase it gives 'em a chance to practice without any performance anxeity they are just saying the words to help their guy win the race. 3. Drills CAN be fun, and are important. follow up with exercises where they have to number similar sounding words in the order said, fill the gaps in little rhymes (good practice before a game of bingo) At the end you might be able to get them to rhyme them and make funny poems. 4. (reading) I would also recommend the leveled reader, A-Z books. They are great and give lots of choices. Students can also colour and personalize them. I also recommend reading together. Even some of the Dr. Seuss, I have on line or the nursery rhymes powerpoint full of nursery rhymes. This too is phonics!!! Really is and don't let people tell you it isn't . Phonics is just teaching students to categorize/evaluate text and speech. Connect the two: reading in a different context. 5. I prefer teaching phonics wholistically, rather than individual sounds and linking / creating words by syllables. Syllables are helpful but when it comes to communication, they don't mean a thing other than to a linguist (phony phonemes). One way is to use flashcards. one side the picture, the other side the word. Children learn to pronounce the words from other students and the teacher. One good way is to use a set in a PowerPoint, go over the pronunciation and then print this PowerPoint, 6 slides to a page and cut and you have flashcards for the children to play games with. Collect/keep and you have great sets for all vocab. areas. 6. The first main challenge I'm trying to overcome is how to focus more on suprasegmental rather than segmental phonology. There are many guides and games for the latter (syllable articulation) but not so many for developing skills that aim for improving suprasegmental (use of voice frequency, timing and manipulation of pitch, and duration, stress, and loudness of syllable combinations). In the case of young learners there is much more potential to improve this area, and improvement in this area correlates heavily to improvement in other areas of language acquisition, but we tend to rely on

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mimicking native speakers in class, which can be boring, repetitive, and not targeted on specific improvements. The second challenge is having to rely almost entirely on integrative motivation, as there are few instrumental motivators beyond students' compliancy to the teacher's wishes. Improved phonology presents little or no immediate academic award (or failure little or no immediate consequences) for students. To overcome this I'm trying to put together a

game based on hwa-tu (��) in which students try to match cards containing phrases with the same stress patterns. I'm still trying to figure out how to adapt it to the rules of hwa-tu but when I'm done I'll try to post my new game. I'm also going to try to make a modified game out an activity using origami that Jinks taught me.

Task Based Learning (download) First, it is important to understand what constitutes a task. In TBL, a task is a goal-

oriented activity with a clear purpose. It should achieve an outcome and create a final

product. Some examples include: listing, ordering and sorting, comparing, problem-

solving, sharing personal experiences, and creative tasks.

Some say that TBL is like a PPP lesson turned upside down, or as Willis would say "PPP

the right side up". As in PPP, there are three main phases in a TBL lesson. They include

the pre-task phase, the task cycle and language focus.

In the pre-task phase, there is an introduction to the topic and the task, exposure to real

language (which could include tape recordings of native speakers completing the same

task), and the use of texts and activities involving the texts.

In the task cycle phase, a task is completed, then students are asked to engage in a

'planning' stage to prepare for reporting on how they completed the task. During the

planning stage, students can draft and rehearse what they want to say, with the help of the

teacher. In the reporting stage, students report on the task, while others listen and give

comments. There is no error-correction during the task cycle phase.

The final phase is language focus, where students analyse language and practice it. Based

on the texts that students used in the first phase, the teacher will set some language-

focused tasks. Here, there is a focus on form.

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Activity Props Using the prop of one activity as the crux of the next activity. I saw this at a demo class at Bucheon Seo elementary school: The kids were doing a mingler with question cards, and once they sat down there was a letter on the back of their card. Everyone at the table would put their letters together to make a word: a transitional element built into the activity, but the question is how to make that transition without the TTT that was used during the demo class. Activity with cards à TTT to explain transition à Next activity with cards (I guess the element of surprise/unknowing is what makes this a transitional element). I mean the kids might know the cards are just used for two activities, so you can interpret it as 1 prop for two activities, but if the children are unaware of the second use, then I think it splits the dynamic into something diverse. Consolidation Every class/unit/or semester should have consolidation function that brings together everything learned. How to do it? When to do it? What comprises a consolidation? are the questions at hand. Classroom Movement When the students need to move, the T can stage it to music. If you have an activity that gets the students up and maybe sitting in different seats: play a song and have the Ss move back to their original seats. The basic idea is for Ts to be aware that this is possible; music + movement. Material Preparation Have the Ss paste into their notebook an envelope, so you can assign any cutting or prepping for homework, and they can store the pieces in their envelope. Also either have an English folder that the Ss bring to class with them, or take the time to paste the handouts and sheets into their book: neat little inclusive activity that puts everything they’re doing in one book. Using Flashcards in the English Classroom Most teacher use flashcards in their English lessons when they have to introduce new vocabulary. Using flashcards with students will allow them to be able to understand the new vocabulary without any kind of translation. We must take into account that there are lexical fields that cannot be illustrated with flashcards (some abstract words, such as feelings).

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To start with, we will always choose comprehension activities. This means that the students are not required to say the new words; they should just try to understand them. After this stage, it is good to introduce activities, which require repetitive production. Then, they will be ready to develop tasks in which they have to speak without models. Finally, we will have to introduce interaction activities, which involve contextual use of the language. Comprehension -Saying Hello (only in infant education): Very young children enjoy saying hello to the animals, the people, and even the objects. We can put the flashcards in different places in the room and have Ss greet them alternatively. When the Ss have mastered the main vocabulary, we can make errors like saying, “Hello kangaroo, how are you?” when we are speaking to the monkey. Children will be delighted to say, “no, that is a monkey!”. -The Chain: We put all the flashcards in different places. We choose one student and we say one word, “donkey”. The S has to find the right flashcard in the right spot. The idea is to use a repetitive chain of words: Donkey, monkey, horse, cat, dog, and pig. Use the same chain for each S. -Point To: T says, “point to the donkey, point to the horse, and Ss have to perform the actions. Jazz it up by chunking more animals together or making a rhythm out of it: Point to the turkey, horse, turkey, cat, dog, pig, turkey. Works well with the chain started with another activity; try to keep the same chain throughout the different activities, and once Ss have mastered the vocab, then change the chain randomly for spice. -Where Is It?: T turns all the cards upside down (on the floor/table), and then chooses 1 S to be asked a question: where is the cat? Use 1 S for as many times as possible, or until failure. Also, use a chain for this. -Be Quick!: T puts all the cards in different places in the room, or has Ss hold them up. T asks 2 Ss to stand. T says one word, “Giraffe”, and both Ss will try and grab it to bring back to their desk. At the end, the student with the most cards wins. Repetition Here are activities with flashcards that promote echoic repetition of vocab. -The Parrots: 1 S leaves the room, and the T hides a flashcard around the room somewhere. The S comes back into the room, and the other Ss will chant the word on the hidden flashcard softly if the S is far away, and loudly if the S is close to the card.

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-Whispers: Divide the Students into groups. Put all the flashcards on the board. Have a group representative come to you and then whisper to them one of the words. Those Ss must return and whisper the word to the S next to them. The group must whisper through all the students, and the last student will run up and grab the flashcard. Production -Mad Pointer: Put all the cards on the board, and point to a series of four/five very quickly. Ss must pay attention and try to memorize the cards and the sequence. Ask Ss one by one to see if they are able to say the words in the right order. -Memory Game: Put all the cards in a pile, and show them one by one noting the sequence, and then have students tell you the sequence that the cards came out in. -Upside Down: Put all the cards upside down, and ask Ss, “what is this?”. -Just a Little Bit: Take one card and hide it behind a book, a folder, etc. Show just a little bit of the card, and ask Ss to figure out what it is. -Just a Glimpse: Take one card and show it very quickly, so the Ss can’t see it clearly. Then ask what it is, and let the Ss figure out. -The Missing Card: Put all the cards on the wall/carpet, and have students look at them for 15-30 secs. Then ask them to close their eyes, and the T removes one card. Ss must find out, which one is missing. The S who picks the right card gets to pick the next card that will be removed for the Ss. -On My Back: Put one card on a S’s back, and let them go around looking at the other Ss’s cards to figure out which one they have. Variations are abundant for this. -Odd One Out: Put some cards on the board. All the cards should be related to a topic except for one card. Example: trousers, jacket, cow, shoes, shirt, sweater. Have the Ss figure out the odd one. Interaction Interaction activities require contextual language. For this reason, I cannot suggest any general activity that could be applied to different lexical fields. For example, if we are learning vocabulary related to animals, we could play the role of hungers in the jungle.

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Teaching Songs to Young Learners Songs are a good resource for English Teaching:

1. They are funny 2. They promote mimics, gestures, and etc associated to the meaning 3. They are good for introducing suprasegmental phonetics (stress, rhythm, and

intonation) 4. Ss play a participative role 5. Songs can be adapted for comprehension skills, or production skills 6. There are songs for all levels and ages 7. Ss learn English very easily through echoic memory

It is not enough to play a cassette/DVD/VCD or to just say, “Let’s sing a song!” Teachers must introduce activities to promote student’s comprehension and acquisition of the rhythm. Furthermore, if Ts want the Ss to sing the song, they, the students, must listen to it many times. How do Ts do that without the Ss getting bored? Song Activities To Promote Comprehension -Hands Up!: Students have to put their hand up when they hear a chosen word. Ts can increase the difficulty by adding actions with more words: put your hands up when you hear “car,” and close your eyes when you hear, “tiger.” By adding a new request each listening, you can create a funny TPR dance that ties the vocab. to an action. It is good to use meaningful gestures that relate to the word/picture: swing arms for monkey. -The Chairs: Put chairs in a circle, and have all Ss sit except 1 who will stay in the middle. Put flashcards under the chairs; you must have two of each card. Play the music, and when they hear the word, “monkey,” the 2 Ss with a monkey card try and switch seats, and this is when the S in the middle can try and steal a seat! -Gap fill: obvious controlled activity, but can be quite useful in conjunction with other more interactive and free activities. Song Listening Activities These activities promote an unconscious learning of the song. They are useful if we want the Ss to sing the song after awhile. -Pass the Ball: Put chairs into a circle, or use whatever arrangement will work. Have the Ss sit down, and give 1 S the ball. Play the music, and have the Ss try to pass the ball with the rhythm of the song. The S who has the ball at the end of the song must stand up and answer/ask/produce some sort of question/task/etc.

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-The Ring: (for very young children) The traditional ring around the posy kind of game in which Ss dance around in a circle, and then fall down, or something else. -The Cage: Same as the ring, but with a prop: place a ring that the Ss must walk through while dancing, and when the music stops, or is stopped, the S in the cage must answer a CCQ, etc. Classroom Routines Routines are very useful for young learners: they will feel confident and it gives them a sense of consistency. Routines should involve the Ss’s participation as much as possible. This will give you the opportunity to reinforce the must important content every day, without the Ss getting tired of it. Daily Routines -Make a Calendar and Weather Wall chart: Make a big poster wit the questions, What day is today?, and What is the weather like?, and other questions too! T makes all the flashcards and words that Ss might need to answer those questions, and then the T puts them in a box/container. Every day, the T picks a S to stick the right cards and words on the wall chart. -Count the Students and Ask If Someone Is Missing: Practices numbers. -Ask If There Is A Birthday in the Classroom: Make a fake cake and use it through the course. -Dressing the Class Animal: Use a bear, or stuffed animal, and ask the Ss to dress the animal according to the weather. -The English Corner: Make an English Corner in the classroom. T can put all the flashcards, vocab words that have been taught. T can also make and put copies of tasks/gap fills/matching exercises, and others there for the Ss to choose and do when they have time. Discipline and Classroom Control Don’t accept loud behavior, which means do not talk over the Ss, or continue the lesson/activity while Ss are acting out. This mismatches what is acceptable in the classroom and promotes further disruption because the teacher models that it is okay to continue not paying attention while the T is working. To correct this activity, stop and use body language as a tactic; also, use rhymes, and repeated hand motions that the students will pick up on. With one class, I would raise my hand palm out, and touch my elbow with my other hand, and the Ss knew it meant to quiet down. The best way is to incorporate a few different methods.

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-If You are Happy and You Know It: Use this to make commands in a proactive way. It’s discipline without the harsh edge: “If you are happy and you know it close your mouth/sit down/stand up/etc!” Teach it at the beginning of a course. -If you have a disruptive S, sometimes it is helpful to choose them and have them come to you and be your holder/helper. I’ll have them hold my bucket of goodies, or maybe collect the flashcards for me as I use them. Sometimes I just have the S come up to me and hang out with me a little up front before sending them back to sit down. The S has no idea why, and if you do it nicely they have no idea you are disrupting their disruption. -Make sure to teach the phrases and words that you will use for commands, and discipline: Read Look Write Match Listen Work. One way to teach these is by practicing them in vocab. manners, and then using a controlled matching exercise. Asking Questions, and developing your CCQ style. I had a presentation with a co-teacher one day, and we were passing the locus of control back and forth in a good manner, but I got to observe his questioning style, and it made me realize how poor mine was in comparison! Your questioning style is one of the most important strategies a teacher can have and utilize says, Douglas H. Brown à look for his book: From my observation, I noticed these things:

1. His CCQ’s were non-linear (more creative in approach). 2. He paused to redirect the topic to a distant, yet related topic, or he would start

with a related topic and worked towards the target language. 3. He emphasized action. 4. He asked the Ss direct questions that were contextual for their situation, instead of

just questions about the flashcards/objects of learning. Example: He would ask about the other students, himself, the S’s parents, etc.

Special Notes -I always use teams in my YL classes (not only for games/and activities but for general rewards, and punishment also. I use a star system for rewards, and the result of having the most stars is that team can leave the classroom first) Using a star system can aid in learning and production too. I don’t always use stars, or simple team names. I will pull vocab out of the lesson and use that as the team name, or as the board point. I might have Team A, and Team J (similar sound letters, and for their points, I might draw Team A an ice cream, and then draw team B carrots: this system allows you to ask more CCQS about

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preference, amount, size, color, etc, AND it allows you to get them mad/upset. Draw a small carrot vs. a big ice cream and see what that team does: use it for L2 production! Crafted teacher mistakes are very useful because the Ss will have a desire to correct the problem, situation. -For YL class disruption you can change the seating. I mean sometimes have the Ss sit on the floor and go on with the lesson. They have less reason to stand up and fidget if they change every once in awhile. -When choosing students, don’t just always call someone’s name. Use different methods: eenie meanie miney mo, or pick a student; have them close their eyes and spin with their arm and finger pointed out; then say, “STOP,” and whoever that S is pointing at is chosen. Another rhyme is: One, two, three, four, five, This is English, English time. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, Come with me; we’re going to play.

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Tips and Routines for YL Activities Decorations and How To You need to decorate your room with activities and pieces of language/art that the students can interact with. To do so you can make a monster farm with monster phonics from bogglesworld.com; you can make a color coded and indexed by sandpaper grit alphabet (do it according to the sound: A,J,K), and you can make simple matrix boards for connecting sentences: Subject card with a pic and word + Verb card with a pic and word + Object card with pic and word. SVO, SVAO, SO. A great attaching device is to use sticky paper first and staple Velcro to the sticky paper. It sticks well and the Velcro makes it easy to attach laminated cards, etc to it. It’s durable, easy, cheap, and it will last if the kids yank on it a bit. Powerpoint Use powerpoint slides in your class to introduce many things (pictures, ideas, actions, sounds), but for this purpose make sure to use some it for introducing song lyrics. The students need to see them, and you can do many activities with the lyrics before even getting into the song. The whole class can view them, and it’s easy to manipulate with the program. Using Hotseat When you use hotseat, sometimes use it right after an active listening activity because the students will be able to employ the gestures they learned for the active listening activity. I didn’t come up with this; it just happened one time, and my students were giving hints with the gestures: great stuff! Queing Choral Repetition Just simply ask the whole class, “what? I didn’t hear that” A Hangman Hint If you think the word/sentence/or construction is too hard for you students, or it is the first time you play a word guessing game, you can give them a hint in the form of a mistake: Write the slots for a typical hangman game, but write a letter instead of a slot “accidentally”. If some students were watching they will see the letter; then you look at it and make some oops gestures before erasing it; the students will understand what happened. I don’t play hangman, I just do sentence and word guessing with pattern practiced question forms.

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Comprehensible Input and Questions EX: I have flashcards with the days of the week. I pick up Thursday and have group 1 count through the letters with me. Then, I ask them about the 5th letter. The counting gives them a scaffold to understand the question, and even if they don’t know the questions, they may recognize the similarity between the numbers 5 and 5th. Use this example to expand your use of CI and prepping of the students. Whose Left, Whose Right? When modeling for left/right sides or directions make sure you are facing the way the students are facing. Many YLs do not recognize the difference between the way you’re facing (towards them) and the way they’re facing (towards you). Cut down the confusion and show them only their way. TTT Reduction Reduce your TTT by queuing choral repetition with your fingers: each finger will represent a letter in the sentence/saying. 5 words = 5 fingers, plus sometimes the kids will join with you, and that just adds some physical gestures to their practice. Frontloading In some activities the teacher may need to frontload certain information. Frontload structures and ideas that are infrequent in the activity but are important for learning and being able to produce the L2 more. EX: a grab bag of pictures: the students must take a picture and say a sentence about the features of the picture. To keep the students from repeating the same old and abused features frontload a picture or two that pushes them to use another feature: I would have frontloaded an elephant and a theatre mask because the prominent features will push the children to pick them out and use them. Implying the Rules/Structure for an Activity A. Before starting a pattern practice activity, the T will put the pattern on the board and then have the Ss repeat it after the T with the BBB (beep beep beep) sound. Then the T will say the pattern filled in correctly with a word: the Ss will repeat. The T then answers/gives the response they would normally give if a S were producing the pattern on their own. Example: Letter fill-in activity: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _! The pattern: Is there a ____? T = Is there a BBB Ss = Is there a BBB

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T = Is there a Q? Ss = Is there a Q? T = No, there is no Q. T repeats a wrong one again, and then gives the Ss a right letter, so they see how the activity will unfold. B. Give the Ss implied structure by putting place magnets under the lesson sections being done the time: GEPIK curriculum: Let’s Sing, Read and Write, Let’s Play, etc. Transitions Songs and Chants as transitions, especially while Co-Teaching: 1 T prepares activity while the other sings/chants with the students. TPR songs: a song that moves fast à slow, or vice versa, and the students will be able to perform it quickly – 1-2 minutes maximum. The 2nd T can than do a short activity, etc to fill in the remaining prep. time. Chat Time After explaining something difficult, the teacher should check to see of at least 1 student understood the directions/explanation. The teacher can set this up with the student before hand, but can also let it flow naturally. The teacher will explain, then the T will leave for a quick drink, and in that time the student who knows what to do will explain in L1 the directions, and there is no affective interruption. The class needs to be controlled and bonded enough to the teacher to allow for a short leave from class: 30 seconds.

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Young Learner Games Finish the Features This is a read and draw but it’s for the context of drawing faces and features of people, so it can fit well with a similar lesson, and also shows how the read and draw/listen and draw can be adapted for content use. Recognizing Questions You can use audio, textual, or real input and you can teach the students to listen for question intonation vs statement intonation, punctuation, and grammatical markers such as fronted WH words and basic grammatical inversion. You can do active listening activities, speed games, writing, relay, etc. Woland’s Activity Do something like a dictogloss or grammar dictation: Choose a short text that is manageable for the students. Go over any new vocabulary ahead of time and do a short pre-reading type of activity on the topic to get students prepared. Tell the students that you will be reading the text ONE TIME ONLY AT NORMAL SPEED and that they should write down whatever they hear. Once this is done (the first time you do this, chaos will occur, and you may have to read again, but in later uses of this technique, students will be better prepared), tell the students that their job is to reconstruct the exact text you read them. More chaos. Get them settled down to work for a few minutes. They will be unable to do it. When no one seems to be writing anything, partner them and have them help each other with the task. When paired efforts break down, put pairs together. Repeat again, moving to groups of eight. At this point, the groups should be getting substantial portions of the text. Check to see which is furthest along and have them write their text on the board. Allow the other groups to make challenges to anything that they think isn't right on the board. Finally, re-read the original text, indicating fixes on the board. Then discuss the areas where they had trouble. This will take 30 to 45 minutes total. The first time you do this there will be chaos. The second time will be better. The third

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time should be all smooth, with the students knowing what the problem is, that they will be able to succeed when they work together, and having developed strategies for dealing with the problem. Communicative Board Game Divide the white board into 4 squares. Each square is labeled Important/Necessary, Important/Unnecessary, Unimportant/Necessary, and Unimportant/Unnecessary. After explaining the words, I ask them to tell me what belong in each category. They can say anything: books, friendship, the sun, nuclear weapons, etc, as long as they can explain themselves. If the students tell me something like, "the sun is necessary and important." I ask, "why?" "Because if no sun, we die." You can move on to the next student with their hand up, or you can ellicit more of an argument from the student or students by asking follow op questions. "What if we lived under the ground?" The students with little speaking ability can say things like, "garbage is unnecessary and unimportant." Smarter students can say things like, "gravity, electricity, pollution, etc." The purpose is to let them use all the vocabulary and grammar that they've already learned, yet never had a chance to use. Twister This is typical twister, but you have the kids make their own mat. Get yourself four large pieces of poster board. On each piece, draw a number of the following figures: circle, triangle, square. Ensure you draw them in different colors: red, blue, green. In each figure, put in an English word. Join the poster board pieces together (2x2). Don't worry about using a spinner for calling. Have a couple of kids stand at either end. Call out body part (left hand, right hand, left foot, right foot) and then either a color, a figure, a word, or a category of word. Make sure you have the kids do the calling and that they don't try to do it in Korean. Station Game Use this station game for scaffolding activities: I was thinking of how to do a scavenger hunt in the room for my summer camps (they didn't want the kids running around outside getting hurt or something) and I came up with a simple station game instead: I used 4 stations: one on each wall. I just build a scaffolded series of activities that the groups must get through: station 1: each students picks a flashcard and pronounces the word, station 2: they recognize the flashcard word from station 1 and draw a picture of it. Station 3: read the word/phrase/sentence and report it to the teacher/head student. Station 4: A pattern practice, or if their level permits: a general mingler, or Q&A.

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Add an extra station for singing. I was surprised how well the students remembered the songs. ____ and Draw Read and Draw - Have Ss walk up the board and read a word from a wordlist, and then go back to their team and draw the word. Listen and Draw - Have Ss pair off and talk and draw, or use an audio file.

The A/An singular/plural activity

It’s from the GEPIK elementary books, and the T repeats phrases: nose, nose, nose, an

ear, ears, an eye, eye. It’s like Simon says but without Simon says, and it relies on the

right gesture with the right expression. The T might touch their nose but say “an eye;’ Ss

need to follow it correctly, and it focuses on A/An.

TPR Use it to teach classroom commands. Turn around, sit, down, but cycle them and make sure to use it constructively: meaning, use it towards the goal of the students being able to understand your commands and words. Computer Backgrounds Use them as a short introductory way to introduce the topic to the students. If you’re working on directions, put a map on it. Just use it as a visual reference, a source of CCQs, and front load it so you can utilize it for making metastatements (statements about what you will learn), and maybe even use it for teaching metalanguage (words for words, nouns, maybe even punctuation.) Combine the background with infrequent/spaced out CCQs, and the expanded games (games that don’t take a whole chunk, but just one round here and one round later).

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Listening Activity Have Ss listen to a dialogue/text and then have them stick an X/O, YES/NO, or True/False on the chosen listening point Clap, Clap The song goes like this: Clap, clap Clap your hands As slowly as you can, Clap, clap, Clap your hands, As quickly as you can. Karafun Event changes, color changes, and time as an affect of NLP and Bloom’s taxonomy. Flashcard Memorization Make a flashcard series, and have 1 S come up and look at the cards. Go through them once with the student and focus on the order (in a peripheral manner: not overtly). Have the S close their eyes and then take 1 card or more away. Have the S open their eyes and figure out which card is missing. Maybe have the other students ask questions, or help to elicit the answer. Team Name Game Name the teams, I usually use number, or a target set of vocab. Words. Associate an action with the team names: T looks and makes a beckoning gesture towards group 1, and in response the Ss are supposed to flash 1 finger, and 2 fingers for team 2, and 3 fingers for team 3. Now the teacher uses this as an active listening game. The T will drill a few sequences and then shock a team by looking at team 3 and gesturing, but the T says team 1. The T gives a point to the actual team called. Guessing Game Print off small pictures of the vocabulary. Tape one piece of paper to each S’s back. Have the Ss go around the room and start a conversation. Non-guessing S: What’s this? Guessing S: with paper on back? It’s a book”

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Non-guessing S; Yes, it is. No, it’s not. YL Mingler for Similar Interests One that works well in a large class and forces Ss in a simple way to use target language is the chain tag game. You can sue this with any level of target language or any kind of vocab. Just change the cards.

1. Model the target language à example: Do you like ____? Yes, I do/No I don’t. 2. Choose 6-8 possible responses. Put these on cards. 3. Distribute the cards to the Ss. Emphasize secrecy. 4. Ss circulate around the classroom using the target language. When they meet

someone who likes the same thing, they say, “So do I”, and link arms. They continue finding all the similarly interested Ss.

5. When the T calls time, the Ss go to a place (integrate Walls and Corners with this). Then ask some CCQs.

Matching Activity

1. Concentration games where the Ss match the word with the picture. 2. Concentration game where the S matches grammar parts: S à V à O

ZIP ZAP BOING! It is quite simple and a good idea for the first lesson!

Ask the class to stand in a circle and introduce the Zip. They have to shout 'Zip' and slide clap their hands towards the person standing to their left. They then pass it on. Once the zip has passed around the entire circle you can use the zap. Use both hands to gesture towards anyone in the circle, who can then zap or zip. The “boing” switches the direction of the movement. Just put up your hands and wiggle them, shouting “boing!” If any student makes a mistake during the game, ask them a question in English and wait for them to answer before continuing with the game.

I do variations with ABCs, and 123, and then a combinatorial finisher.

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YES/NO Game

This is a great way to encourage the students to pay attention and practise their conversational skills at the same time.

It works for ANY level of student.

Divide the class into teams (as many as you feel like. We usually use 2-6 teams). Draw on the board a space for keeping score. Then write on the board "Yes: 2 points" and "No: 1 point" The students will ask you yes/no questions. And you will answer them. If they get you to say `yes` they get 2 pts, and only 1 pt if you say `no.` For example, I’m often asked `Are you human?` and `Can you speak English?` After the get the hang of it... change the points! No can be worth 3 pts, and Yes worth only 1. Try to encourage the silent teams to speak up. This game is no prep, and works great if you have an extra 5 or 10 minutes left over after class is over, and nothing to do.

Toilet Paper Icebreaker

Level: Any

This activity is used as a "getting to know you", icebreaker on the first day of class.

1. Teacher takes the toilet paper roll and takes several squares of toilet paper, then hands the roll of toilet paper to a student. The teacher tells the student to take some, more than three.

2. After everybody in the class has some paper, we count the squares we have, then we have to tell that many things about ourselves, in English.

Chain Spelling (Shiri-tori)

Level: Easy to Medium

The teacher gives a word and asks a student to spell it, and then a second student should say a word beginning with the last letter of the word given. The game continues until someone makes a mistake, that is, to pronounce the word incorrectly, misspell it or come up with a word that has been said already, then he/she is out. The last one remaining in the game is the winner.

This game can be made difficult by limiting the words to a certain category, e.g.. food, tools, or nouns, verbs, etc.

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Bang Bang

Level: Easy

Divide the group into two teams. Explain that they are cowboys and they are involved in a duel. One student from each team comes to the front. Get them to pretend to draw their pistols. Say "how do you say..." and a word in their mother tongue. The first child to give the answer and then "bang bang", pretending to shoot his opponent is the winner. He remains standing and the other one sits down. I give 1 point for the right answer and 5 extra points if they manage to "kill" 4 opponents in a row.

Editor's Note: Instead of saying the word in the students' mother tongue, it would be possible to use a picture or to say a definition ("What do you call the large gray animal with a long nose?")

Describing Appearances & Characteristics of People

Level: Easy to Medium (Low to low intermediate)

Each student is then given one sheet of paper. One student sits at the front of a room. He/she describes a person and the rest of the class draws the person being described.

It is more interesting if everyone knows the person being described. Once the student has finished describing that person then he/she reveals who it is and each student shows his/her drawing. The laughter from this is hilarious, as the impressions tend to make the character in question look funny.

It is a good idea to encourage students to ask the interviewee student questions about who they are describing.

Sticky Toy/Ball Game

If you have a whiteboard in the classroom, buy one of those small sticky latex(?) toys. Divide the board into different areas, filling each with a letter, and divide the class into 2 teams. Kids take it in turn to hurl the toy at the board, and the team receives the letter hit. They score points by making words out of the letters they accumulate, 1 point per letter in the word.

Variation: Ss stand in a circle, and throw the ball to each other. Whoever gets the ball, must ask a question, answer a question, perform a language point, or perform a task of sorts. That S then throws the ball to another S.

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Will The Real Sentence Please Stand Up

This is a grammar activity where you put grammatical and ungrammatical sentences on strips of paper in a bag and tell the students to dip their hands in and take out a strip. They have to stand (or say something else such as 'me' if you rename it Will The Real Sentence Please say me). If they correctly identify it as being grammatical or ungrammatical they get a point and if they can explain why it is ungrammatical or a certain question as to why the grammatical sentence is grammatical they get an extra point.

Who Am I?

This is a game the students really enjoy. You can practice basic grammar for questions and vocabulary, although you can use this game for any level. All the students sit around in a table and each one has to think of a famous or popular person, write it on a post-it (yellow piece of paper with glue on one end), and then stick it in a classmate forehead. Then students take it in turns to ask questions about themselves to find out their own identity. These questions can only be answered with a "yes" or a "no", like, am I a woman? Am I an actor? The game finishes when everybody knows who they are. I also participate in the game and students have a great time with it.

Gesture Game This is a gesture game using previously learnt verbs and emotions. Have two envelopes, one is verbs and one is emotions. Students take one card from each envelope and must perform the gesture; it is simple and very amusing. The students in the audience must guess what the emotion is and what the action is. Who ever guesses it gets to perform, wins a point for team however you set it up. It works well for small groups (5-6) and i am sure it would work for large groups as well. Examples: angry /swimming happy /hair brushing sleepy /dancing afraid/ cleaning surprised /playing a guitar we had a lot of laughs with this one, and it allows for creativity. Sentence Auction Write 15 sentences on a sheet of paper: some should be grammatically correct and others should be wrong. The sentences can be relevant to whatever it is you're teaching that day. Split the students into small groups. The students have to decide which sentences are correct and which are not. The teacher will be the auctioneer and "auction" off all 15

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sentences. The idea is that the students should buy the correct sentences and not the wrong ones. Correct the wrong sentences. Blow the Fish This is a great game to play with large classes Ideal if you are in Korea. Make teams according to rows. Tell each row to make a paper fish. You place each fish between the rows. They should all be at the back facing the front. They should also be in the same position. Using the tile on the floor you can line them up at the starting line. Then you start asking questions when a student answers the question correctly he gets a chance to blow on his teams fish. The team that is able to move their fish to the front of the room wins the game. Find the Word Use with a vocabulary list

This is a vocabulary game for practicing the pronunciation of new words. I find it especially useful when doing 'Word Families'. After introducing, explaining and doing whatever drilling is necessary draw two grids (I generally like to work with two teams) on the board and have the students fill them in with the required words. You can make this part of the game by putting two markers in the middle of the floor, indicating a member from each team, and saying, "GO". The picked students then have to come to the middle of the floor, pick up the markers and write a word in one of the squares of the grid. They then have to give, not throw, the marker to another team member and sit down. This student has to repeat the procedure. It becomes a race and the first team to complete their grid correctly is the winner. The winning team gets to go first in the next part of the game as a prize.

Flashcard Jump

Ss stand in a circle and hold flashcards for everyone to see; T says one S name and that S must jump and say the word. Next, the S says another’s name and that S jumps and says the word, etc.

Where Am I?

2 Ss stand back to back with their books on the same page. 1 S says a word from that page, and the other student must find the sentence and read it out.

Student TV

Draw a large TV set on the white/black board and then use it as a stage for real dialogue following whatever language practice is going on in the class. Use 1 student as a reporter and 1 student as the interviewee; I stand to the side as the cameraman.

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Simple Shapes Activity

Square, Circle, Triangle

Teach them with 1-2-3 because of the syllabic unity. Square = 1, Circle = 2, Triangle = 3. I first taught the shapes, and then introduced the numbers and the correlation to syllables. Once the pre-teaching is done, there are various activities to do:

T says a shape and the students show with their hands 1,2,3. T shows a shape and the students show 1,2,3. Mismatch the shapes and their numbers on the board, and have the Ss fix it.

Finish the Sentence

2 Ss stand back to back and 1 S starts a sentence, and the 2nd S finishes it.

Hot Seat

S sits facing the class (their back should be to the board). T writes a vocab word on the board, and the class must give the hot seat S clues. The class cannot read the word to the hot seat S, but can use body language, noises, words, phrases, etc. The hot seat S must guess what it is, and then I have the S make a sentence or spell it, or some other language activity.

Feather Game

Make a prop (for this one I used a paper feather) and have Ss pass it around while the T closes their eyes and counts down from 20. Then the T must find the feather with CCQs: Who, Where, Does, Do?

Alphabet Sounds

This focuses on teaching similar sounding letters: B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V, and Z.

1. Put on the board and play a bit: have the students list some words that start with the letters, play with pronunciation and voice level (I use my hands for this: my hand down by my knees means a whisper, and up above my head means a scream/shout). OR, elicit the letter list by starting with B, and modeling/pulling the others from the Ss.

2. 1-9 (or how many ever letters there are) and make a board matching exercise. 3. I teach/or review favorite with the Ss, and once having gone over oral production,

I have the Ss write: “My favorites are ___, ___.” àthis makes an opening for minimal pair practice. I then have the Ss read and recite their favorites, and maybe ask them some CCQs: Tell me a word that starts with B?

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4. Have the Ss memorize them with chunking and sing song rhythm: fun, and it works, and Ss realize they can do it!

Running Relay Jigsaw

Cut up a dialogue for as many groups in the class and place them at the back of the class. Have 1 student be the runner, and the other group members will be the sorters. T reads a word/sentence from the dialogue and the runner gets it from the back of the room and brings it to the sorters. When the first runner is back, the teacher reads another line, and so on. At the end, the sorters must put the dialogue into correct order. Don’t read the dialogue in the correct order from the start; mix up your reading, so it is a little harder!

Tic-Tac-Toe

Use teams for this and use relevant CCQs, and language production as the game’s task.

Survey

1 S uses a language point and goes around taking a survey of the other Ss, and then comes and reports their findings. I have done this with 3-4 reporters asking about different sets of questions, and then paired it with the TV activity.

Blind Person

Pick a S to be the blinded, or a T can be the blinded. The blind person sits in a chair at the front of the classroom. A S picks something out of the room and then describes it to the blind man, OR the blind man is given something (realia) to describe.

* A description game that can easily modified, so play with it!

Count the Bubbles!

When teaching couting, use bubbles! Pick a S and have them come to you. Blow some bubbles and have the S count them, and pop them, or play with them.

Word Halves

Use this as a student made controlled activity. Pick a set of words, or let the Ss pick a set of words, and then have them create on their paper a word halves list with the given words.

Once done, have the students trade papers and work on it together.

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* You can have all the words on 1 paper, and just split the words along the two margins, or you can have the Ss cut them apart and make a mix and match activity out of it.

Pass the Baton

This is a relay game that I use with 2 or more teams. A S from each team comes up and does the language practice/activity and then passes the baton on to the next team member: the team that finishes first gets the points.

English Karaoke

One S writes a line on the board, and picks a S to sing it. Once the S sings it, the whole class judges with: thumbs up, thumbs between, thumbs down, and if S has a good score they get to write the next line. If they don’t get a good score, they have some punishment: language production, exercise, silly TPR. Using Words See how many other words are within one word. ROMANTICALLY: I had a class that came up with over 50 words in about 8-12 minutes. Flashcard Hide and Seek This works with any realia, but also with flashcards. Hide the flashcards after pre-teaching about questions and lesson vocab, and then have a S come up to you and practice the specific question, and then let S loose to find the object/flashcard by asking not grabbing/looking! Picture Map/Mind Map Put an occupation, a flash card, a picture, a name, a word, and etc on the board and then have Ss build relative chains of language around it. Put as much of it on the board as possible. Stop the Bus Draw the back of a bus on the board, and then three, or more blank slots around it: _____ Put a letter in a Box inside the bus and then have students tell you an animal, a place, and a food that start with that letter. Of course modify it and change it to fit your needs, ideas!

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Basic Line Game A line game consists of any activity that has Ss run through a line. 2 teams line up together and face off by answering/asking CCQs. A line game has many, many, MANY variations! Blow the fish is almost a line game as it has a sequential order. Charades Have a S come up and act as an animal, worker, etc and the other Ss must guess what the actor is doing, or is. Walls and Corners Tape flashcards or words of places/names/rooms/foods to the wall and then call them out and have the Ss run to them. You can spice this up by closing your eyes and making the Ss be as quiet as possible so you don’t hear where there are. Once you finish counting down, call out a flashcard name and the Ss at that card must sit down/perform a task/etc. Last team/S standing wins. Cambridge English for Schools exercise list -Put the Letters in the Right Order: Choose some words and mix up the letters. Example: Football à albofotl -Put the Words in the Right Order: Choose some sentences and mix up the words. Example: 1. How much is this cassette? à 1. is much cassette how this? -Match the Words with the pictures or the meaning: Choose some words and draw some picture or write the meaning in L1. Match the words with the pictures or the meaning. -Find the Words: Choose some words and hide them in a square of letters. Write some clues. -Put the Sentences in the Right Order: Choose a dialogue or a paragraph. Mix up the sentences. Have Ss put the sentences in the right order. -What’s the Question?: Write some questions and answers. Copy the answers. Leave space for the questions to be filled in. -Fill in the Missing Words: Choose a paragraph and take out some words.

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-Answer the Questions: Choose a paragraph and write some questions. -True or False?: Choose a paragraph and write some true/untrue sentences.

Chosen CES workbook activities within YL EFL classes -A Picture Dictionary: Find pictures of the vocabulary set and arrange them on paper with word blanks that can be filled in by the students. Give the Ss some hints, or way of figuring out the correct way to spell. *Note: use this activity with all kinds of words and subjects: nouns, verbs, animals, rooms of the house, etc. Use variety! -A Circle of Words: Write out a list of related vocab words, but don’t write it in a linear way; write it in a circle, or other shape. Have the Ss find all the words that they can by asking them a simple question: How many _____ can you find? -Word finds: Change the nature of a word find by using a list of pictures instead of just the typical word list.

VCD/DVD/Video Ideas Before Viewing -Brainstorming: Brainstorming can help stimulate the Ss’s interest and expectations about what they will see. To do this, you can simple write the topic on the board and write, ‘what we know’ and ‘questions we have’ in two circles. -Outlining: Before the Ss watch the video, you can give them a brief overview of what it is about. This can help them follow the VCD more easily. It can also help by reducing the amount of language decoding they have to do, which makes it easier for them to acquire the language that they hear. Student Research: A few days before you watch the video, you can tell them what topic it will be about. You can then ask them to do some research to see what they can find out about the topic. Go over the S.R. before delving into the video lesson. Viewing the VCD -Cultural Comparison: You can ask the students to focus on the cultural differences that the video presents. You could ask them to find 5 or 6 things that would be different in their own country. To guide them in this, you could give them some headings:

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What people say to each other What people wear What people do What objects/places are different You could build up a poster on your classroom wall showing the differences that the students notice between countries, and maybe even English speaking countries. Half the Screen: If you put a piece of cardboard over half of the screen, you can ask Ss to speculate what they think is happening in the other half. Language Search: To focus the Ss’s attention on the language used in the video, you can write on the board some key phrases or sentences from the video in their mother tongue. Ss then have to watch the video to find the English equal. Also, you could put the beginnings and endings of some key sentences on the board in English, and Ss must watch the video to complete the sentences. Narrative Recall: After all the students have watched the video, you can ask them exactly what happened, what the people said, what the places looked like, and so on. Ss can also write a short summary of what happened. No Picture: The first time you play the video, you can play on the sound (turn the brightness and contrast down completely, or place a card over the TV). You can ask the Ss what they think is happening, where the people are, how many are speaking, how old the people are, what they look like, etc. No Sound: The first time you play the video, you can show only the picture. You can then ask the students what they think the people are saying. If you put their suggestions up on the board, you can then play the video again section by section to see if they were right. Observation: After you have worked with the language in the video, you can ask the student to look for particular visual information in the video. This can also be used to draw out cultural information: ask the Ss questions about the people/things (obscure and obvious) in the video, and allow them to ask each other, and the T observation questions. Pausing: If you play a short section of the video, you can then pause it and ask Ss questions about what they think will happen next and what has just happened. Search for Information: Try and pull out real life information from the Ss by asking related questions depending on the video material, example: How far is Miami from California? Student Questions: After the students have worked with a video sequence, you can ask them to write some questions for each other about what they have seen. Students can

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then exchange questions and you can play the video again so that they can find the answers and write a reply the questions. Student Tasks: After the students have done various VCD tasks, you could simply play a video segment for them and then ask them to devise practice exercises about it. You can divide the Ss into small groups, play the extract, and then give them 10 minutes or so to discuss what tasks they would like to invent for other Ss. After 10 minutes, play the extract again so that they can focus their discussion. Visual Skimming: Visual skimming is a way of playing the extract to Ss so that they can first get a general idea of what it is about. You can then discuss with them what they think happens in the video and what language they will hear when you play it again. There are two main ways you can do visual skimming:

1. Play the video on ‘fast forward’. This runs at double speed with no sound. 2. Fast-forward the tape and then play a few seconds at normal speed before you run

it forward again. Watching Video: The most natural thing to do with a video is watch it! Simply, let the Ss watch the video all the way through and then ask them what they thought about it/learned from it/found difficult about it. * Note: It can often be VERY frustrating to have tasks to do every time a video is used!

Follow-up Role-Play: Video provides a very good stimulus for role-play after the Ss have seen a segment. There are a number of possibilities here:

1. Ss can re-enact a sequence of the video in their own words. 2. Ss can prepare and act out a familiar sequence 3. Ss can prepare and act out a sequence which is similar in content to the video but

in which something goes wrong Video making: If you have video-making facilities in the school, then you might like to encourage the students to devise and produce their own video sequence. This can involve the students in a lot of useful language work: preparing a script, choosing location, selecting content, and the tape production as well! Project Work: A video sequence can also be used as a starting point for larger project work. After students have watched the sequence, you can discuss with them what other work they can do in connection with the video topic.

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Adult Games

Two Truths - One Lie This is a great game for people who are trying to get to know each other. Everyone sits in a circle and takes turns telling 3 things about themselves; one of them is a lie. Example: I have been to every continent in the world. I won't use green towels. I once had a ferret but my cat killed it. Then everyone else guesses, or votes on which is the lie. It's really funny to see what people come up with for a lie and you learn a lot of funny truths too

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Who’s The Expert?

Skills: Speaking Levels: High-beginner through advanced Materials: Double-sided copies of the Classroom Handout, one for each student (You may have to cut this sheet to get "page two" on the back.) Preparation: 5 minutes Time: 60-90 minutes

Directions: Introduce the lesson by writing the word "expert" on the board and eliciting a definition. The write the expression “jack of all trades," and provide a personal example of someone you know. I use my brother for this one. I say something like, "My brother really is a jack of all trades. He's interested in a lot of different things. He knows a lot about a lot of different things. For example, he went to university for nuclear engineering, so he knows a lot about science. He worked for the government as an engineer. Later, he got an MBA, so he knows a lot about business. He's certified to scuba dive, and has thought about opening his own diving shop. He likes to ski. He can cook. He makes a lot of different types of food. He can fix things in the house when they break. Also, he likes to travel, and he's been to more than 40 different countries, and he really enjoys history, especially American history. So there's a lot of different things my brother is good at." By now, the students understand what the expression means (and the women are asking whether or not my brother is single).

Next, call on individual students. Ask them if they are jacks-of-all-trades. Ask what they've studied, what they're interested in. After you've asked a few students, tell students to think of five things they're interested in. Remind students that these things should be varied ("Playing soccer, playing tennis, and swimming are all one category: sports.) At this point, you may want to do a brief grammatical review on the use of gerunds to describe activities. Next, pass out the copies. As the students are writing, circulate and check for correct grammar. Encourage variety on the responses.

Now, tell students to turn the paper over. They should choose three of these things to rewrite on the other side. They are going to be the classroom expert on these three things. The handout is on the next page.

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What are you an expert at?

List five of your interests/hobbies below:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Now, choose three of your five interests:

1.

2.

3.

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Once students have finished listing their three areas of expertise, instruct them to fold their papers in half so that the papers can stand up on their desks. Now divide the class into As and Bs. As will be the first group of classroom experts. Bs will be the first group of questioners. As will remain at their desks. Bs will circulate.

Have all the Bs put their papers aside and stand up. Ask them to arrange the desks so that every student who is still sitting has a desk directly facing him/her. Now, tell the Bs to wander around and sit down in front of an A. They should read As topics and ask about something they're interested in.

You should find that the conversation gets going immediately. If you're class is an uneven number, you can play too. Otherwise, you can just join different pairs and monitor.

After 5-7 minutes you call "Change!” The Bs stand up again, circulated, and choose a new partner for conversation.

Halfway through the time for your lesson, the As sit down with their sheets. They are now the classroom experts. The Bs get up and circulate, asking questions of the As.

Allow 3-5 minutes at the end of class for synthesis. Bring the class back together. Call on individual students to report on what they've learned. Encourage them to continue their conversations outside of class.

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Do You Know Your Classmates?

Skills: Speaking Levels: Intermediate through advanced Materials: Copies of the Classroom Handout, one for each student Preparation: 5 minutes Time: 45-60 minutes

Directions: Introduce the topic by asking the class how much they really know about each other. How much do they know about their teachers? Which student has a tattoo, for example? (Don't tell--even if no one has a tattoo, it will get their imaginations going.) Pass out copies of the classroom handout and go over any unknown vocabulary. You may also want to do a brief grammatical review of present perfect vs. simple past. Remind students that conversation is quick and fluid. (I actually teach the no gap/no overlap rule.) Tell students that they are going to find out which of their classmates have had these exciting experiences. They can ask anyone in the class any question; if the person says "yes," they need to ask at least three follow-up questions to get the story.

Instruct students to get up and start asking questions. They do not have to start at number one, nor do they have to get through all of the questions on the list. Instead, they should choose the ideas they find the most intriguing and use these as the starting point for good conversations.

Students should very quickly become engaged in telling their personal stories. During this time, you can circulate and encourage individual students to elaborate on their experiences.

With about ten minutes left in the lesson, call the class back together. Ask individual students to report on the most interesting/surprising/exciting story that they heard. Encourage students to retell the story, asking the original classmate for clarifications if necessary. You could also ask for a report back on one of the topics. For example "Did anyone find a classmate who has a tattoo?"

.

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Find out if someone in your class:

1. has had a problem with the police

2. has almost died

3. has met a famous person

4. has had a frightening experience on an airplane

5. has had a premonition or experienced ESP

6. has had a dream that later came true

7. has fallen in love with a person they could not have

8. has been on a terrible date

9. has gotten a tattoo

10. has performed a daredevil act

11. has backpacked in a foreign country

12. has been to a gay bar

13. has eaten something disgusting (outside the US)

14. has won something (for example, the lottery. a contest)

15. has been to a casino

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I’ve Never…

Level: Intermediate-advanced Grammar: Present perfect and simple past Directions: First, do a model round. Instead of using alcohol, I've heard you can use pennies or nickels to make this one fun. Start out by telling the class something you've never done. For example, "I've never been to India." Anyone who has been to India must tell the story. After they tell the story and their classmates ask follow-up questions, they receive a penny. Play continues to the right as the next person says, "I've never..." Again, students who have done this receive a penny. Once the students have gotten the idea, put them in groups to continue the activity. (You could continue to play as a whole class, but there's more time for language production if they're in groups.) At the end, see who has the most pennies and joke about this person being the most experienced.

Variation: A much faster version may be better for grammatical review than conversation practice. Play this as a whole class game. Start with everyone standing up. Students sit down if they've never done something. Those standing should tell their stories to the whole class. The person with the most experience is the only one left standing. That person wins the game.

Speaking for 1 Minute

For small groups. You have a list of subjects to talk about. i.e., Football, the sex life of the inside of a ping-pong ball, cooking. etc. You choose one person to start talking about the subject. If the person repeats a word, hesitates or makes a grammatical error, another person in the group can take over by saying error, hesitation or repetition. It is the teachers job to decide quickly if the interruption is valid. The person who interrupts them must continue. The winner is the person talking at the end of the minute.

Call My Bluff

You need a big (bilingual) dictionary for this one. A student looks in the dictionary and finds a word which seems very obscure. That student gives a definition of the word to the others. The definition must be either 100% true or 100% false. When the student has finished the others must decide if the definition was bluff or true. The student receives a point for each person who is deceived.

Variation

Instead of using definitions. The students must tell the others something about themselves which is 100% true or 100% false. i.e. I always tell them that my second cousin was the tallest ever woman to live in Britain and tell them some things about it. This happens to be true. This is an excellent game for compulsive liars.

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Finishing the Conversation

Imagine you have found an old sound recorder with a tape in it. Almost nothing can be heard, but the very last sentence of a conversation. What were they talking about; who were they, why were they talking, etc?

Idiom Translation

Have one S with an L1 idiom, and have that S read it to another S. The 2nd S must translate it into English and give a description of it if possible.

Basic Translation Activity

Have Ss work in pairs and translate simple L1 phrases/sentences into English.

Tongue Twisters (T.Ts)

T.Ts are great for teaching pronunciation, as they focus on only one sound, or related sounds, or the distinction between similar sounds.

Sentence Starters Write a list of sentence starters and have Ss finish them. You can do this many ways: orally, on paper, partners, T-S, etc.

Idioms Give your Ss a list of Idioms and have them work out what they think the meaning is by themselves, and then in pairs, and then in groups. Then tell your Ss that there are a certain # of false idioms, and have them figure out which ones they think are not idioms.

IRC Have your students use Internet Relay Chat for L2 practice: homework, etc.

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Cloze Activities + Presentation Cloze A Cloze activity is when a certain number of spaces is between each gapped word. Example: I am the man _____ thought the world was _____. Using closes are good as part of reading comprehension, but they can be quite difficult, even for higher-level students. To combat this innate difficulty, the T should pre-teach the gaps that they excluded from the text. Since the T knows the missing information, it is a little unfair not to prepare the Ss for the exercise. Give them help in some manner of preparation.

Songs

Here are some pre-listening activities:

-Speculation: Put the title/a picture of the band/etc on the board. Have Ss make guesses about what the song is about/when it is from/where it is from. Ts can make a group guessing activity by have the Ss write their guesses down and passing them to another group. Does the 2nd group agree, disagree, what happens to the guess?

-Pictures: Get a picture of the band, and have Ss make up a story about them. Or, get picture that relates to the topic and have the Students guess about the song.

-Vocab: 1. Put vocab. from the song on the board, and have the Ss get up and ask each other what they mean. 2. Have Ss in groups write a quick story that uses the words. 3. Play the song, and have Ss shout stop anytime they hear one of the new words.

-Strip activity: Cut the song into strips and have groups of Ss work to put the song into order.

-Song Gap Fill/Blank Activity: Print the lyrics out and take some of the vocab. out and put a blank in its’ stead. Have the Ss work to finish the worksheet.

* You can also focus on grammar points, example: for past tense practice the T might blank out all the past tense verbs in a song and only write the base form; the Ss must write the correct past tense in the slot.

The best thing is to have a varied approach to teaching songs. Just listening to a song is not teaching, and the Ss will know something is lacking! My current approach to teaching adults songs is this:

1. On the board: name of the song, name of the band, era, and some pictures of artists of which one is the real band

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2. Discuss this information in speculative manners about sound, looks, speed, instruments, topic, meaning, etc, and ask some questions that will later be found out to be true/false

3. Play the song once 4. Discuss what the Ss can infer from the song, and touch on any related topic from

part 1: who is the band, were the Ss assumptions correct 5. Pass out a gap-fill, and read through it once before playing the song again 6. Play the song again twice. 7. Go over the gap fill and expect many slots to be left open; collect the gap fill with

the Ss name on it 8. Pass out a sentence strip activity that has an appropriate length! (a whole song can

be too tedious to finish many times) 9. Play the sentence strip part of the song until the groups are finished. 10. Pass back the Gap fill and work through the remaining missing slots 11. Summary discussion about likes/dislikes in the music, initial assumptions, the

pictures, etc.

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Young Learner Chants

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The following are simple chants to help students remember the sounds made by each letter of the alphabet. Of course the words used in the examples may be changed according to your students' vocabularies. The general rhythm of each chant is the same. Please note the [CLAP] markings in the first sample. This follows stressed syllables. This is intended as a fun review, not a forced drill or rote memory project. Teach one or two sounds a day like this. Vary chant by saying it loudly, saying it softly, saying it fast, saying it slowly, saying it up high, saying it down low, asking all the boys to say it, asking everyone wearing red to say it, etc. After students have memorized new sound, do a quick review of old sounds. With just five to ten minutes a day of this review, even the youngest learners will be able to associate words with their initial sounds. A [CLAP] says /a/ [CLAP] like ap-[CLAP] -ple. A [CLAP] says /a/ [CLAP] /a/ [CLAP] /a/ [CLAP]. B says /b/ like baseball. B says /b/ /b/ /b/. C says /c/ like cookie. C say /c/ /c/ /c/. D says /d/ like dinosaur. D says /d/ /d/ /d/. E says /e/ like elephant. E says /e/ /e/ /e/. F says /f/ like fireman. F says /f/ /f/ /f/. G says /g/ like goldfish. G says /g/ /g/ /g/. H says /h/ like hospital. H says /h/ /h/ /h/.

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I says /i/ like igloo. I says /i/ /i/ /i/. J says /j/ like jumping. J says /j/ /j/ /j/. K says /k/ like kitten. K says /k/ /k/ /k/. L says /l/ like listen. L says /l/ /l/ /l/. M says /m/ like mother. M says /m/ /m/ /m/. N says /n/ like nurse. N says /n/ /n/ /n/. O says /o/ like octopus. O says /o/ /o/ /o/. P says /p/ like pencil. P says /p/ /p/ /p/. Q says /q/ like queen. Q says /q/ /q/ /q/. R says /r/ like rabbit. R says /r/ /r/ /r/. S says /s/ like snowman. S says /s/ /s/ /s/. T says /t/ like turtle. T says /t/ /t/ /t/. U says /u/ like umbrella. U says /u/ /u/ /u/. V says /v/ like van. V says /v/ /v/ /v/. X says /x/ like X-ray. X says /x/ /x/ /x/.

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Y says /y/ like yellow. Y says /y/ /y/ /y/. Z says /z/ like zebra. Z says /z/ /z/ /z/.

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Giraffe are tall, with necks so long. (Stand on tip toes; raise arms high up into air.) Elephants' trunks are big and strong. (Make trunk with hand and arm.) Zebras have stripes and can gallop away, (Gallop around in a circle.) While monkeys in the trees do sway. (Sway back and forth.) Old crocodile swims in a pool so deep, (Pretend to swim.) Or lies in the sun and goes to sleep. (Lay head on hands and close eyes.) �

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This popular children's chant is a great way to teach basic prepositions! Let's go on a bear hunt. (Slap hands together.) I see a wheat field. Can't go over it. Let's go through it. (Move hands as if to part wheat.) I see a bridge. Can't go around it. Let's go over it. (Stack hands on top of one another.) I see a lake. Can't go over it, can't go under it, let's swim. (Make swimming motions with arms.) I see a tree. Can't go over it, can't go under it, let's go up it. (Climb with arms.) I don't see any bears. (Look around) Let's go down. (Pretend to climb down.)

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I see a swamp. Can't go over it, can't go under it, let's go through it. (Move hands as if to wade through swamp.) I see a cave. Can't go over it, can't go under it, let's go in. (Lean over as if to crawl through a small hole; slowly slap knees.) I see two eyes. I see two ears. (Point to eyes; point to ears.) I see a nose. I see a mouth. (Point to nose; point to mouth.) Yikes! It's a bear! (Place palms on cheeks in show of surprise.) Let's get out of here. (Quickly run backward.)�

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This is designed as a fun review of basic clothing items. It is suggested that you introduce this activity using the group exercise. The first few times through the chant, the teacher will need to lead the activity. As students grow more comfortable with modifying questions and responses, the teacher may reduce his or her level of involvement until students are solely on their own.

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As leaders develop within the student group, the teacher may begin practicing with these using the individual exercise. (This also helps to prevent the better students from growing bored while slower students are learning the required vocabulary.) With five to ten minutes of practice per day, within one or two weeks, most (if not every) student should be able to complete the individual exercise. At this point, students should be able to include learn terminology in new contexts. (i.e. "Is So-ri's shirt red?" "No, it's not. It's brown." or following simple instructions such as "Color the boy's shoes purple.") Group: What [CLAP] is [student] [CLAP] wear- [CLAP] -ing? What [CLAP] is [student] [CLAP] wear- [CLAP] -ing? What [CLAP] is [student] [CLAP] wear- [CLAP] -ing to-day [CLAP]? [Student]'s [CLAP] wear- [CLAP] -ing [color] [CLAP] shoes. [Student]'s [CLAP] wear- [CLAP] -ing [color] [CLAP] shoes. [Student]'s [CLAP] wear- [CLAP] -ing [color] [CLAP] shoes today. What else [CLAP] is [student] [CLAP] wear- [CLAP] -ing? What else [CLAP] is [student] [CLAP] wear- [CLAP] -ing? What else [CLAP] is [student] [CLAP] wear- [CLAP] -ing to-day [CLAP]? [Student]'s [CLAP] wear- [CLAP] -ing [color] [CLAP] socks. [Student]'s [CLAP] wear- [CLAP] -ing [color] [CLAP] socks. [Student]'s [CLAP] wear- [CLAP] -ing [color] [CLAP] socks today. Continue for other articles of clothing (pants, skirt, shirt, dress, hat, etc.).

Individual: What [CLAP] are you wear- [CLAP] -ing? What [CLAP] are you wear- [CLAP] -ing? What [CLAP] are you wear- [CLAP] -ing to-day [CLAP]? I'm wear- [CLAP] -ing my [color] [CLAP] shoes. I'm wear- [CLAP] -ing my [color] [CLAP] shoes. I'm wear- [CLAP] -ing my [color] [CLAP] shoes to-day [CLAP]. What else [CLAP] are you wear- [CLAP] -ing? What else [CLAP] are you wear- [CLAP] -ing? What else [CLAP] are you wear- [CLAP] -ing to-day [CLAP]?

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I'm wear- [CLAP] -ing my [color] [CLAP] socks. I'm wear- [CLAP] -ing my [color] [CLAP] socks. I'm wear- [CLAP] -ing my [color] [CLAP] socks to-day [CLAP]. Continue for other articles of clothing (pants, skirt, shirt, dress, hat, etc.).��������

���� �������If I were an astronaut, (Crouch down close to the ground, pretending to be in a space shuttle.) What would I do? Blast off to the moon, (Jump up as high as possible.) Then look down at you. (Hold hand above eyes and look down.)

If I were a baker (Pretend to put on apron.) What would I do? Bake lots of cookies (Make a circle with hands.) For me and you. (Point to self and a friend.) If I were a dentist, (Look in friend's mouth.) What would I do? I'd clean your teeth (Pretend to clean friend's teeth.) Because that's good for you! If I were a farmer, (Pretend to remove hat; wipe forehead.) What would I do? I'd rise up early every day, (Yawn and stretch.) And milk the cows for you. (Pretend to drink glass of milk.) If I were a pilot, (Pretend to fly.) What would I do? I 'd climb into the cockpit, (Pretend to climb into cockpit.) And fly my plane for you.

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If I were a secretary, (Pretend to type.) What would I do? Answer the phone, (Pretend to hold phone to ear.) Saying, "How do you do?"�)�*�$�����+����

�"Do you like," "Do you like," "Do you like [food]?" "Yes, I like," "Yes, I like," "Yes, I like [food]!" OR "No, I don't," "No, I don't," "No, I don't like [food]!" Review with class: "Does s/he like," "Does s/he like," "Does s/he like [food]?" "Yes, s/he does," "Yes, s/he does," "Yes, s/he does like [food]!" "Yes, s/he does," "Yes, s/he does," "S/he likes it very much!" "No, s/he doesn't," "No, s/he doesn't," "No, s/he doesn't like [food]!" "No, s/he doesn't," "No, s/he doesn't," S/he doesn't like it at all!"�

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Rain, rain, go away! Come again another day. Rain, rain, go away! Little [insert student's name] wants to play. Teaching Suggestions

• Teach this simply rhyme on a rainy day.�• Copy the rain and sun pictures on this page. Let children color these

simple designs, cut them out, and paste them on cards. Drill students on the phrases, "It's rainy!" and "It's sunny!" by holding up one of the two cards and asking, "What's the weather like?" You may practice listening skills by calling out either "It's rainy" or "It's sunny" and waiting for students to hold up appropriate cards.�

• Discuss basic uses of water (i.e. "We drink it," "We bathe in it," We cook with it," "We swim in it," etc.)��

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�Many teachers may remember this activity from their own childhoods. It is usually played with a jump rope. (Two students turn the jump rope, while another performs the actions described.) In the ESL setting, you may play it with jump rope out of doors or perform the actions as a class indoors. (The jump rope variation may be too difficult for very young students.) Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Turn around. Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Touch the ground. Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Show your shoe. Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, That will do!

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Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Go upstairs. Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Say your prayers. Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Switch off the light. Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Say "Good night!"�

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A fun way for students to review names of various body parts I have ten little fingers and ten little toes, (Kids point to portions of body as they repeat words.) Two little arms and one little nose, One little mouth and two little ears, Two little eyes for smiles and tears, One little head and two little feet, One little chin, that's (student's name) complete!��������

�A: "Where did you go today?" A: "Where did you go today?" B: "Today I went to [place (i.e. school)]." B: "Today I went to [place]." B: "That's what I did today!" B: "That what I did today!" A : "Today s/he went to [place]." A: "Today s/he went to [place]." A: "That's what s/he did today!" A: "That's what s/he did today!" Suggestion: Teach basic structure of chant, then choose a student to be B and perform the role of A. After A has mirrored B's response, B becomes the next

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player A and chooses someone else to be B. You may wish to have all students stand, then sit down after they have performed roles B and A. This will ensure that all students get one turn before any student gets a second turn.�

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The red at the top Tells us to STOP! The green below Tells us to GO! The yellow in the middle Tells us to WAIT! Please don't worry-- You won't be late!�

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Another classic children's chant, this is a fun game for teaching the quesion "who?". Class: Who took the cookies from the cookie jar? Teacher: [Student's name] took the cookies from the cookie jar! [Student]: Who, me? Class: Yes, you. [Student]: Couldn't be. Class: Then who? [Student]: [Next student's name] took the cookies from the cookie jar! [Next student]: Who, me? Continue in pattern.

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Grammar Chants - Question Words From Kenneth Beare, Your Guide to English as 2nd Language. Question Words Chant

Teacher/Leader: Go! Class/Group: Go!

Teacher/Leader: Who goes? Class/Group: Who goes?

Teacher/Leader: He goes. Class/Group: He goes.

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Teacher/Leader: Where does he go? Class/Group: Where does he go?

Teacher/Leader: He goes to school. Class/Group: He goes to school.

Teacher/Leader: When does he go to school? Class/Group: When does he go to school?

Teacher/Leader: He goes to school in the morning. Class/Group: He goes to school at in the morning.

Teacher/Leader: How does he go to school? Class/Group: How does he go to school?

Teacher/Leader: He goes to school by bus. Class/Group: He goes to school by bus.

Teacher/Leader: What does he do at school? Class/Group: What does he do at school?

Teacher/Leader: He learns lots of things. Class/Group: He learns lots of things.

Teacher/Leader: Why does he go to school? Class/Group: Why does he go to school?

Teacher/Leader: Because he wants to learn. Class/Group: Because he wants to learn.

Grammar Chants - Questions with 'How' From Kenneth Beare, Your Guide to English as 2nd Language. Questions with 'How'

Teacher/Leader: How! Class/Group: How!

Teacher/Leader: How much? Class/Group: How much?

Teacher/Leader: A lot! Class/Group: A lot!

Teacher/Leader: How many? Class/Group: How many?

Teacher/Leader: A few. Class/Group: A few.

Teacher/Leader: How often? Class/Group: How often?

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Teacher/Leader: Sometimes. Class/Group: Sometimes.

Teacher/Leader: How long? Class/Group: How long?

Teacher/Leader: Two hours. Class/Group: Two hours.

Teacher/Leader: How far? Class/Group: How far?

Teacher/Leader: Twenty miles. Class/Group: Twenty miles.

Teacher/Leader: How are you? Class/Group: How are you?

Teacher/Leader: Fine! Class/Group: Fine!

Teacher/Leader: How do you do? Class/Group: How do you do?

Teacher/Leader: It's a pleasure. Class/Group: It's a pleasure.

Teacher/Leader: How much is it? Class/Group: How much is it?

Teacher/Leader: $20. Class/Group: $20.

Teacher/Leader: How many are there? Class/Group: How many are there?

Teacher/Leader: Ten! Class/Group: Ten!

Teacher/Leader: How! Class/Group: How!

Grammar Chants - Introductions From Kenneth Beare, Your Guide to English as 2nd Language. Introductions 1

Teacher/Leader: Hi! Class/Group: Hi!

Teacher/Leader: How do you do? Class/Group: How do you do?

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Teacher/Leader: How are you? Class/Group: How are you?

Teacher/Leader: How do you do? Class/Group: How do you do?

Teacher/Leader: How do you do. Class/Group: How do you do.

Teacher/Leader: How are you? Class/Group: How are you?

Teacher/Leader: I'm fine, and you? Class/Group: I'm fine, and you?

Teacher/Leader: I'm fine thanks. Class/Group: I'm fine, thanks.

Teacher/Leader: How do you do? Class/Group: How do you do?

Teacher/Leader: How do you do. Class/Group: How do you do.

Teacher/Leader: How are you? Class/Group: How are you?

Teacher/Leader: I'm fine, and you? Class/Group: I'm fine, and you?

Teacher/Leader: I'm great, thanks. Class/Group: I'm great, thanks.

Introductions 2

Teacher/Leader: Hi! Class/Group: Hi!

Teacher/Leader: How do you do? Class/Group: How do you do?

Teacher/Leader: Nice to meet you. Class/Group: Nice to meet you.

Teacher/Leader: How are you? Class/Group: How are you?

Teacher/Leader: I'm fine and you? Class/Group: I'm fine and you?

Teacher/Leader: What's your name? Class/Group: What's your name?

Teacher/Leader: My name is Fred. Class/Group: My name is Fred.

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Teacher/Leader: Where are you from? Class/Group: Where are you from?

Teacher/Leader: I'm from Seattle. Class/Group: I'm from Seattle.

Teacher/Leader: Are you American? Class/Group: Are you American?

Teacher/Leader: Yes, I am. Class/Group: Yes, I am.

Teacher/Leader: Where are YOU from? Class/Group: Where are YOU from?

Teacher/Leader: I'm from India. Class/Group: I'm from India.

Grammar Chants - Questions with 'Like' From Kenneth Beare, Your Guide to English as 2nd Language. FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!

Teacher/Leader: LIKE! Class/Group: LIKE!

Teacher/Leader: What is he like? Class/Group: What is he like?

Teacher/Leader: Nice and friendly! Class/Group: Nice and friendly!

Teacher/Leader: What does she like? Class/Group: What does she like?

Teacher/Leader: She likes sports. Class/Group: She likes sports.

Teacher/Leader: What would you like? Class/Group: What would you like?

Teacher/Leader: Food! Class/Group: Food! Teacher/Leader: What does she look like? Class/Group: What does she look like?

Teacher/Leader: Tall and pretty. Class/Group: Tall and pretty.

Teacher/Leader: LIKE! Class/Group: LIKE!

Teacher/Leader: What would you like? Class/Group: What would you like?

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Teacher/Leader: Something to drink. Class/Group: Something to drink.

Teacher/Leader: What do you like? Class/Group: What do you like?

Teacher/Leader: Watching TV and reading. Class/Group: Watching TV and reading.

Teacher/Leader: What is she like? Class/Group: What is she like?

Teacher/Leader: Nice and friendly. Class/Group: Nice and friendly.

Teacher/Leader: How is he? Class/Group: How is he?

Teacher/Leader: Fine Class/Group: Fine

Grammar Chants - Verb + Gerund From Kenneth Beare, Your Guide to English as 2nd Language. ING

Teacher/Leader: ING Class/Group: ING

Teacher/Leader: like doing Class/Group: like doing

Teacher/Leader: I like reading. Class/Group: I like reading.

Teacher/Leader: love doing Class/Group: love doing

Teacher/Leader: I love dancing! Class/Group: I love dancing!

Teacher/Leader: HATE doing Class/Group: HATE doing

Teacher/Leader: I hate working! Class/Group: I hate working!

Teacher/Leader: avoid doing Class/Group: avoid doing

Teacher/Leader: He avoided answering. Class/Group: He avoided answering.

Teacher/Leader: finish doing Class/Group: finish doing

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Teacher/Leader: He finished playing tennis. Class/Group: He finished playing tennis.

Teacher/Leader: practice doing Class/Group: practice doing

Teacher/Leader: He practiced playing the piano. Class/Group: He practiced playing the piano.

Teacher/Leader: try doing Class/Group: try doing

Teacher/Leader: We tried chanting! Class/Group: We tried chanting!

Teacher/Leader: ING! Class/Group: ING!

Grammar Chants - Verb + Infinitive From Kenneth Beare, Your Guide to English as 2nd Language.

Teacher/Leader: INFINITIVE! Class/Group: INFINITIVE!

Teacher/Leader: would like to do Class/Group: would like to do

Teacher/Leader: I'd like to come. Class/Group: I'd like to come.

Teacher/Leader: appear to do Class/Group: appear to do

Teacher/Leader: He appears to like the show. Class/Group: He appears to like the show.

Teacher/Leader: claim to do Class/Group: claim to do

Teacher/Leader: They claim to work hard. Class/Group: They claim to work hard.

Teacher/Leader: hope to do Class/Group: hope to do

Teacher/Leader: Hope to see you soon! Class/Group: Hope to see you soon!

Teacher/Leader: learn to do Class/Group: learn to do

Teacher/Leader: He learned to play golf. Class/Group: He learned to play golf.

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Teacher/Leader: need to do Class/Group: need to do

Teacher/Leader: I need to do some work. Class/Group: I need to do some work.

Teacher/Leader: want to do Class/Group: want to do

Teacher/Leader: He wants to come. Class/Group: He wants to come.

Teacher/Leader: INFINITIVE! Class/Group: INFINITIVE!

Grammar Chants – Pronouns From Kenneth Beare, Your Guide to English as 2nd Language.

Teacher/Leader: I Class/Group: I

Teacher/Leader: I, me Class/Group: I, me

Teacher/Leader: My book. Class/Group: My book.

Teacher/Leader: That's mine. Class/Group: That's mine.

Teacher/Leader: You Class/Group: You

Teacher/Leader: You, you Class/Group: You, you

Teacher/Leader: Your book Class/Group: Your book

Teacher/Leader: That's yours. Class/Group: That's yours.

Teacher/Leader: He Class/Group: He

Teacher/Leader: He, him Class/Group: He, him

Teacher/Leader: His book Class/Group: His book

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Teacher/Leader: That's his. Class/Group: That's his.

Teacher/Leader: She Class/Group: She

Teacher/Leader: She, her Class/Group: She, her

Teacher/Leader: Her book Class/Group: Her book

Teacher/Leader: That's hers. Class/Group: That's hers.

Teacher/Leader: We Class/Group: We

Teacher/Leader: We, us Class/Group: We, us

Teacher/Leader: Our book Class/Group: Our book

Teacher/Leader: That's ours Class/Group: That's ours

Teacher/Leader: They Class/Group: They

Teacher/Leader: They, them Class/Group: They, them

Teacher/Leader: Their book Class/Group: Their book

Teacher/Leader: That's theirs. Class/Group: That's theirs.

Grammar Chants - Simple Present From Kenneth Beare, Your Guide to English as 2nd Language.

Teacher/Leader: I Class/Group: I

Teacher/Leader: I know you. Class/Group: I know you.

Teacher/Leader: He Class/Group: He

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Teacher/Leader: He knows you. Class/Group: He knows you.

Teacher/Leader: I Class/Group: I

Teacher/Leader: I don't know. Class/Group: I don't know.

Teacher/Leader: He Class/Group: He

Teacher/Leader: He doesn't know. Class/Group: He doesn't know.

Teacher/Leader: We Class/Group: We

Teacher/Leader: We enjoy this class. Class/Group: We enjoy this class.

Teacher/Leader: She Class/Group: She

Teacher/Leader: She enjoys this class. Class/Group: She enjoys this class.

Teacher/Leader: You Class/Group: You

Teacher/Leader: You don't complain. Class/Group: You don't complain.

Teacher/Leader: She Class/Group: She

Teacher/Leader: She doesn't complain. Class/Group: She doesn't complain.

Teacher/Leader: They Class/Group: They

Teacher/Leader: Do they like it? Class/Group: Do they like it?

Teacher/Leader: He Class/Group: He

Teacher/Leader: Does he like it? Class/Group: Does he like it?

Teacher/Leader: I, you, we, they Class/Group: I, you, we, they

Teacher/Leader: no S, no S, no s Class/Group: no S, no S, no S

95

Teacher/Leader: He, She, It Class/Group: He, She, It

Teacher/Leader: yes s, yes s, yes s Class/Group: yes s, yes s, yes s

Grammar Chants - Past Forms From Kenneth Beare, Your Guide to English as 2nd Language.

Teacher/Leader: Ed Class/Group: Ed

Teacher/Leader: Our friend Ed. Class/Group: Our friend Ed.

Teacher/Leader: doesn't speak Class/Group: doesn't speak

Teacher/Leader: except after t! Class/Group: except after t!

Teacher/Leader: started, wanted, planted Class/Group: started, wanted, planted

Teacher/Leader: Ed Class/Group: Ed

Teacher/Leader: Our friend Ed. Class/Group: Our friend Ed.

Teacher/Leader: doesn't speak Class/Group: doesn't speak

Teacher/Leader: except after T! Class/Group: except after T!

Teacher/Leader: played, listened, watched Class/Group: played, listened, watched

Teacher/Leader: Ed Class/Group: Ed

Teacher/Leader: Our friend Ed Class/Group: Our friend Ed

Teacher/Leader: has some friends Class/Group: has some friends

Teacher/Leader: who don't fit in. Class/Group: who don't fit in.

96

Teacher/Leader: go - went Class/Group: go - went

Teacher/Leader: buy - bought Class/Group: buy - bought

Teacher/Leader: put - put Class/Group: put - put

Teacher/Leader: think - thought Class/Group: think - thought

Teacher/Leader: What can we do? Class/Group: What can we do?

Teacher/Leader: Learn those verbs! Class/Group: Learn those verbs!

Grammar Chants - Past Forms From Kenneth Beare, Your Guide to English as 2nd Language.

Teacher/Leader: Ed Class/Group: Ed

Teacher/Leader: Our friend Ed. Class/Group: Our friend Ed.

Teacher/Leader: doesn't speak Class/Group: doesn't speak

Teacher/Leader: except after t! Class/Group: except after t!

Teacher/Leader: started, wanted, planted Class/Group: started, wanted, planted

Teacher/Leader: Ed Class/Group: Ed

Teacher/Leader: Our friend Ed. Class/Group: Our friend Ed.

Teacher/Leader: doesn't speak Class/Group: doesn't speak

Teacher/Leader: except after T! Class/Group: except after T!

Teacher/Leader: played, listened, watched Class/Group: played, listened, watched

97

Teacher/Leader: Ed Class/Group: Ed

Teacher/Leader: Our friend Ed Class/Group: Our friend Ed

Teacher/Leader: has some friends Class/Group: has some friends

Teacher/Leader: who don't fit in. Class/Group: who don't fit in.

Teacher/Leader: go - went Class/Group: go - went

Teacher/Leader: buy - bought Class/Group: buy - bought

Teacher/Leader: put - put Class/Group: put - put

Teacher/Leader: think - thought Class/Group: think - thought

Teacher/Leader: What can we do? Class/Group: What can we do?

Teacher/Leader: Learn those verbs! Class/Group: Learn those verbs!

Grammar Chants - Comparative Forms From Kenneth Beare, Your Guide to English as 2nd Language.

Comparative Forms

Teacher/Leader: big Class/Group: big

Teacher/Leader: bigger Class/Group: bigger

Teacher/Leader: happy Class/Group: happy

Teacher/Leader: happier Class/Group: happier

Teacher/Leader: expensive Class/Group: expensive

Teacher/Leader: more expensive Class/Group: more expensive

98

Teacher/Leader: He's tall. Class/Group: He's tall.

Teacher/Leader: He's taller than you. Class/Group: He's taller than you.

Teacher/Leader: She's funny. Class/Group: She's funny.

Teacher/Leader: She's funnier than Jack. Class/Group: She's funnier than Jack.

Teacher/Leader: It's beautiful. Class/Group: It's beautiful.

Teacher/Leader: It's more beautiful than a picture. Class/Group: It's more beautiful than a picture.

Teacher/Leader: One syllable - hot. Class/Group: One syllable - hot.

Teacher/Leader: Add - er - hotter. Class/Group: Add - er - hotter.

Teacher/Leader: Two syllables y - happy. Class/Group: Two syllables y - happy.

Teacher/Leader: Add - ier - happier. Class/Group: Add - ier - happier.

Teacher/Leader: Three or more -interesting. Class/Group: Three or more - interesting.

Teacher/Leader: Add 'more' before! - more interesting Class/Group: Add 'more' before! - more interesting

Teacher/Leader: Exceptions to the rule Class/Group: Exceptions to the rule

Teacher/Leader: good - better Class/Group: good - better

Teacher/Leader: bad - worse Class/Group: bad - worse

Teacher/Leader: far - farther Class/Group: far - farther

Grammar Chants - Superlative Forms From Kenneth Beare, Your Guide to English as 2nd Language.

Superlative Forms

99

Teacher/Leader: fast Class/Group: fast

Teacher/Leader: the fastest Class/Group: the fastest

Teacher/Leader: lucky Class/Group: lucky

Teacher/Leader: the luckiest Class/Group: the luckiest

Teacher/Leader: exciting Class/Group: exciting

Teacher/Leader: The most exciting Class/Group: The most exciting

Teacher/Leader: That car's fast! Class/Group: That car's fast!

Teacher/Leader: That car's the fastest in town. Class/Group: That car's the fastest in town.

Teacher/Leader: She's lucky. Class/Group: She's lucky.

Teacher/Leader: She's the luckiest girl I know! Class/Group: She's the luckiest girl I know!

Teacher/Leader: The roller-coaster's exciting. Class/Group: The roller-coaster's exciting.

Teacher/Leader: The roller-coaster's the most exciting ride in the park. Class/Group: The roller-coaster's the most exciting ride in the park.

Teacher/Leader: One syllable - fast. Class/Group: One syllable - fast.

Teacher/Leader: Add - the -est - the fastest. Class/Group: Add - the -est - the fastest.

Teacher/Leader: Two syllables y - lucky. Class/Group: Two syllables y - lucky.

Teacher/Leader: Add - the -iest - the luckiest. Class/Group: Add - the -iest - the luckiest.

Teacher/Leader: Three or more syllables - exciting. Class/Group: Three or more syllables - exciting.

Teacher/Leader: Add 'the most' - the most exciting. Class/Group: Add 'the most' - the most exciting.

Teacher/Leader: Exceptions to the rule Class/Group: Exceptions to the rule

100

Teacher/Leader: good - the best Class/Group: good - the best

Teacher/Leader: bad - the worst Class/Group: bad - the worst

Teacher/Leader: far - the farthest Class/Group: far - the farthest

Grammar Chants - Superlative and Comparative Forms From Kenneth Beare, Your Guide to English as 2nd Language.

Comparative AND Superlative Forms

Teacher/Leader: cold Class/Group: cold

Teacher/Leader: thinner - the thinnest Class/Group: thinner - the thinnest

Teacher/Leader: noisy Class/Group: noisy

Teacher/Leader: noisier - the noisiest Class/Group: noisier - the noisiest

Teacher/Leader: intelligent Class/Group: intelligent

Teacher/Leader: more intelligent - the most intelligent Class/Group: more intelligent - the most intelligent

Teacher/Leader: She's thin. Class/Group: She's thin.

Teacher/Leader: She's thinner than Mary, but Jane is the thinnest in the class. Class/Group: She's thinner than Mary, but Jane is the thinnest in the class.

Teacher/Leader: You're noisy! Class/Group: You're noisy!

Teacher/Leader: You're noisier than Tom, but Jack is the noisiest in the class. Class/Group: You're noisier than Tom, but Jack is the noisiest in the class.

Teacher/Leader: Peter is intelligent. Class/Group: Peter is intelligent.

Teacher/Leader: Peter's more intelligent than I, but Frank is the most intelligent of all. Class/Group: Peter's more intelligent than I, but Frank is the most intelligent of all.

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Teacher/Leader: One syllable - thin. Class/Group: One syllable - thin.

Teacher/Leader: Add - er, Add the -est - thinner - the thinnest. Class/Group: Add - er, Add the -est - thinner - the thinnest.

Teacher/Leader: Two syllables y - add -ier, add the -iest - noisy - noisier - the noisiest. Class/Group: Two syllables y - add -ier, add the -iest - noisy - noisier - the noisiest.

Teacher/Leader: Three or more syllables - add 'more' before - add 'the most' - intelligent - more intelligent - the most intelligent. Class/Group: Three or more syllables - add 'more' before - add 'the most' - intelligent - more intelligent - the most intelligent.

Teacher/Leader: Exceptions to the rule Class/Group: Exceptions to the rule

Teacher/Leader: good - better - best Class/Group: good - better - best

Teacher/Leader: bad - worse - the worst Class/Group: bad - worse - the worst

Teacher/Leader: far - farther - the farthest Class/Group: far - farther - the farthest